RE: Where are the semantics in the semantic Web?

Our interest in Semantic Web Services would be, I believe, primarily in
reducing the cost of establishing electronic business relationships by
reducing the ambiguities in the service descriptions.  That is, the
objective is to reduce the number of telephone calls and expensive
misunderstandings, not to completely automate the process via an agent.
There is no way in the world that we would be willing to let a
contractual obligation be incurred by a decision made by an automated
process.  We, or at least I, have no interest in taking people out of
the loop entirely.  For this reason I keep looking for "halfway
measures".  Something simple that actually does something modestly
useful in a reasonable time frame is much more attractive than ambitious
projects that may or may not ever get finished -- at least on a time
scale comparable to my remaining working life. 

-----Original Message-----
From: public-sws-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:public-sws-ig-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of Drew McDermott
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 1:53 PM
To: public-sws-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Where are the semantics in the semantic Web?



> [Shi, Xuan]

> However, if service semantics is developed based on standards and 
> agreements, then everything is clear and we do not need logic for 
> matchmaking.

Well, yes, but that takes all the fun out of it.  You seem to be saying
that human developers, given enough clear information about web
services, can write any desired program for interacting with web
services.  That's certainly true.  The more interesting question (to me,
anyway) is whether there is a point in "generality space" where it pays
people to describe web services formally enough that automated agents
can write the programs, or at least play a role in writing them.  The
descriptions would have to be written without detailed knowledge of what
program was going to be required, which seems to indicate that the
notation should be neutral and general-purpose.
Such notations tend to look like logic of some kind.

Of course, the answer to the "interesting question" may well be No.

                                             -- Drew

-- 

                                         -- Drew McDermott
                                            Yale University
                                            Computer Science Department

Received on Tuesday, 22 November 2005 22:50:16 UTC