Re: <nettime> the semantic web for beginners

[Frank Wales <frank@limov.com>]

On 12/29/03 11:16, Ian Dickson wrote:
> I love all this Semantic Web talk.
> 
> Mainly because I haven't seen so much of a gap between theory and 
> reality since the 5 Year Plans of Stalin's era.

You know, as I read Ian's description, I was struck by how strongly
his comments about the shortcomings of present semantic web work
mirrored the shortcomings of artificial intelligence, what with
there being two apparent forms (one almost trivial and one
ludicrously ambitious), a critical dependence on weakly-formulated
knowledge from non-computing domains, a belief in the power of
a critical mass of information to solve problems somehow, a general
vagueness that pervades the whole topic, and apparent enthusiasm for
how wonderful things will be when it's all done.

It's probably just me being cynical, though.
-- 
Frank Wales [frank@limov.com]

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