Re: W3C and SWS

Ignore this AAAI-Fellow again? - the same challenge to SWS - No
Questions & No Answers ? We'd better shut-up.

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A Google executive challenged Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee on his
ideas for a Semantic Web during a conference in Boston on artificial
intelligence. 

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On Tuesday, Berners-Lee, the father of the Web and the current director
of the World Wide Web Consortium, gave the keynote on artificial
intelligence and the Semantic Web at a conference sponsored by the
American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).

He said the next stage of the Web is about making data accessible for
artificial intelligence to locate and analyze. A Semantic Web, a Web
with linked data easily readable by machines, would make available more
knowledge for reuse in serendipitous applications by people and
organizations who are not the ones who originally created or published
the information, Berners-Lee said.

The speech covered Berners-Lee's known proposal for Web developers to
use semantic languages in addition to HTML. He stressed the importance
of using persistent URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) and RDF
(Resource Description Framework) for identifying information. Consistent
use of these specifications, said Berners-Lee, will allow the Semantic
Web to maintain the collaborative nature the World Wide Web was
originally intended to have.

At the end of the keynote, however, things took a different turn.
Google Director of Search and AAAI Fellow Peter Norvig was the first to
the microphone during the Q&A session, and he took the opportunity to
raise a few points.

"What I get a lot is: 'Why are you against the Semantic Web?' I am not
against the Semantic Web. But from Google's point of view, there are a
few things you need to overcome, incompetence being the first," Norvig
said. Norvig clarified that it was not Berners-Lee or his group that he
was referring to as incompetent, but the general user.

"We deal with millions of Web masters who can't configure a server,
can't write HTML. It's hard for them to go to the next step. The second
problem is competition. Some commercial providers say, 'I'm the leader.
Why should I standardize?' The third problem is one of deception. We
deal every day with people who try to rank higher in the results and
then try to sell someone Viagra when that's not what they are looking
for. With less human oversight with the Semantic Web, we are worried
about it being easier to be deceptive," Norvig said.

"While you own the data that's fine, but when somebody breaks and says,
'If you use our enterprise system, we will have all your data in RDF. We
care because we've got the best database.' That is much more powerful,"
Berners-Lee said. To illustrate his stance, he used the example of
bookstores initially withholding information on stock levels and
purchase price but then breaking them as others did.

Berners-Lee agreed with Norvig that deception on the Internet is a
problem, but he argued that part of the Semantic Web is about
identifying the originator of information, and identifying why the
information can be trusted, not just the content of the information
itself.

"Google is in a situation to do wonderful things, as it did with the
Web in general, and add a whole other facet to the graphs--the rules
that are testing which data source. It will be a much richer
environment," Berners-Lee told the search giant executive.

Received on Monday, 16 October 2006 18:48:11 UTC