[Air-l] The Semantic Web

Charles Ess cmess at lib.drury.edu
Thu Mar 14 10:30:04 PST 2002


Dear all:

Dreyfus discusses the limitations of Web searching specifically in _On the
Internet_, ch. 1, esp. pp. 21ff.  He cites some Information Retrieval folk
who state that a ca. 30% retrieval rate (of all genuinely
relevant/meaningful documents) is the current wall for retrieval techniques.

I'm not sure if Dreyfus has looked at the proposals for the semantic web
closely - but he's been very clear (for many decades now - smile!) that
semantics in the strong sense of human meaning are beyond the reach of AI
(which apparently plays some role in this project in terms of making
intelligent - i.e., ostensibly meaningful - links between web pages).  Some
of his argument on this point is summarized in ch. 1 of _On the Internet_

It will at least be interesting to see what happens.  For my part, I take
the Nietzschean motto: Let us try it...

Cheerfully,

Charles Ess
Director, Interdisciplinary Studies Center
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.                          Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA            FAX: 417-873-7435
Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/
"...to be non-violent, we must not wish for anything on this earth which the
meanest and lowest of human beings cannot have." -- Gandhi

> From: Arthur Stutt <A.Stutt at open.ac.uk>
> Reply-To: air-l at aoir.org
> Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 15:52:39 +0000
> To: air-l at aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-l] The Semantic Web
> 
> Hi
> 
> Has anyone come across any material which takes a critical look at
> the social impact of the Semantic Web as envisaged by TIM
> BERNERS-LEE, et al.?
> 
> http://www.sciam.com/2001/0501issue/0501berners-lee.html
> http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
> http://www.semanticweb.org/
> 
> Arthur
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Air-l mailing list
> Air-l at aoir.org
> http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l





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