Re: [tlug] Effect of AI and data processing rift on the Semantic Web

[Edward Middleton <emiddleton@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Edward Middleton writes:
>
>  > This[1] is an interesting post about the historical division between the 
>  > data processing and AI camps, and discusses how it has negatively 
>  > effected the development of the semantic web.
>
> The semantic web was never going anywhere anyway, IMHO.  The WWW
> itself is a natural outgrowth of instantiating Ted Nelson's Xanadu
> insight (principally hypertext) on the foundation of the Internet.
> Why has this worked?  Because of the IETF's traditional "build on best
> practices" approach to standards.  In other words, it works *because
> it works*.  We don't need to know more than that, really.
>
> The semantic web, on the other hand, was conceived by a bunch of
> philosophers who want it to reflect their theories.  It could work,
> but only by accident, and that accident has to involve the rest of the
> world.
>
> AI, on the other hand, actually works and is used all over the place.
> But its reputation has suffered from the inverse of Clarke's Law:[1]
>   

Come on this isn't slashdot, the semantic web is an attempt to apply AI 
to the web.

Edward