Question regarding demand for ontological learning tools

Hi All:

I am new to the group.  I joined to see if I could interest anyone in
providing their dispassionate third-party views on the topic of ontological
learning tools.  

We are a small startup company who has done initial prototyping of tools for
knowledge extraction using ontologies and the mathematics of topology to
improve search precision.  We started in medicine since ontologies currently
exist in that domain.

We are considering the pursuit of a new artificial intelligence tool for
semi-automated ontological learning from free-form text.  The technology
would likely involve evolutionary learning on parallel architectures that
includes natural language processing to extract logic assertions from
free-form text.

We are very early in looking at the possibility of prototyping this tool, so
I am looking for dispassionate views from third-parties to verify that a
demand exists for semi-automated ontological learning, and to gather
thoughts about potential applications with the greatest value.

I suppose like any small startup we have gotten excited about our ideas only
to find that a great demand did not exist.  So I'm looking for outside
feedback.

I have two objectives: a) gather views from knowledgeable parties in the
industry, and b) if results are positive then become active in the
appropriate groups so we can become engaged in standards and trends.

As a goal the tool would be developed on non-proprietary platforms (rdf/owl,
etc); however, we do see the possibility of more exotic AI "stuff" like
genetic algorithms in the mix.  It is too early to really know.

So, the two basic questions I would like to pose to kick off a discussion
are as follows:

1.	If a practical approach to ontological learning were made available,
would there be a significant demand for it? (I.e., if ontological learning
were made available, would it fill a critical gap in semantic web
technologies, or are manual grass roots efforts sufficient, perhaps things
like manual publishing of linked data?)
2.	What are the ontological learning tools that would likely have the
greatest demand?  For example, what kind of information is examined, and
what kinds of ontologies are generated from this information?

I would greatly appreciate input and thoughts on this topic, and hope to
have a good dialogue on the topic.

Thank you in advance for your interest and thoughtful responses.  I
appreciate the opportunity to join this group and I hope that this
discussion can add in some way to the group's charter.

Regards,

George

 

George Shannon

President, Raphael Analytics, Inc.

16 Spur Drive

Fenton, MO 63026

(314) 550-5589 (cell)

 <mailto:George.Shannon@raphaelanalytics.com>
George.Shannon@raphaelanalytics.com

 <http://www.raphaelanalytics.com/> www.raphaelanalytics.com

 

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