Re: Machine-Readable Records

Hi David,

Whilst I appreciate the distinction you’re making, the rapid widespread adoption of AI will change how people think of machine processable information, so I think a different term is needed to distinguish informal from formal information. Consider the contrast between a business contract expressed in legalese (a subset of natural language) and the information used to state a particular customer order where precision is essential.  Trying to hold back shifts in the meaning of words is reminiscent of King Canute and the tide, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide

p.s. I am convinced that the energy consumption of AI will come down very considerably as the technology switches to sparse spiking networks on neuromorphic hardware. This may however take another decade yet.

> On 7 Jul 2024, at 01:31, David Booth <david@dbooth.org> wrote:
> 
> On 7/5/24 03:17, Dave Raggett wrote:
>> Just to note that machine readable formats now includes natural language, images, video and sound. AI is good at handling imperfect knowledge, 
> 
> I don't disagree with AI's ability to handle imperfect knowledge, but I do wish to quibble about the term "machine processable".  I have been using terms like "machine readable" or "machine processable" for decades as a way to distinguish between formats that are readily amenable to precise, deterministic interpretation versus formats that can only be interpreted heuristically and not necessarily correctly.    This is a key difference, for example, between a data formats like RDF and natural English.  I have found this distinction useful, because The former requires a relatively tiny amount of processing power; the latter requires enormous amounts to reach high accuracy of interpretation, and even at its best you can never be sure that the machine guessed it right.  Applying the term "machine processable" to natural language muddies the water, making it more difficult to identify and discuss this important qualitative difference.
> 
> Thanks,
> David Booth
> 

Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org>