Ron, your requirement statement is wonderful in its brevity and in its
challenge! Ed's assessments of major present players was also
admirable, for its very relevant deep and wise perspectives, but I can
sense your frustration. (01)
If my "MACK basics" series of posts to this list seems to be
forgetting to do so, please remind me to return to your challenge once
I have built up the bigger MACK picture a bit further. Then I will
show how on the forthcoming "DemocraticWeb" each one of your use cases
might play out in a supported yet natural way (even if I have to add
many qualifications to your idea of "a base ontology that describes a
fair amount of the universe.") (02)
For that, I first need to expand a lot more on issues like what MACK
brings to modularity and scalability at Internet scales. For now,
meanwhile, I just remind or point out that the generic function of the
MACK-conformant AOS for MACK-conformant applications or functionality
is to be the basis for a universal "market vehicle" or marketplace. (03)
Thank you, in great anticipation too!
Christopher (04)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Wheeler" <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantic Web shortcomings [was Re: ANN:
GoodRelations - The Web Ontology for E-Commerce] (05)
>I am not sure about the value of picking winners and losers.
>
> I think that too much focus is on words and not enough on software
> engineering.
>
> What I want are better tools for building applications that are
> based on
> the concepts behind the semantic web.
> I would be happy if there were applications that actually could
> allow a
> SME to easily describe the relationships between things and tools
> that
> would let application developers build user friendly applications
> that
> could draw reasonable conclusions based on the relationships.
>
> "What will happen if we turn off valve 298 in unit B?" What are the
> procedural steps required to verify that valve 298 can be closed
> safely?"
>
> "What is the best insurance product that we have for a business
> owner
> with a wife and 2 kids in college?" What is the risk assessment for
> this
> farm? What would be the premium? What information is missing to
> complete
> this risk assessment?"
>
> I would like a tool that will make it easy to build simulations and
> serious games based on simple scenarios added to a base ontology
> that
> describes a fair amount of the universe.
>
> Ron
>
>
> Ed Barkmeyer wrote:
>> Ron Wheeler wrote:
>>
>>> Software Engineering is required if you actually want anything
>>> functional.
>>> Otherwise all you get is words which is what we mostly have now.
>>>
>>
>> Absolutely. But there is a difference between "heavy applications"
>> with
>> "complex tools", that actually represent the results of design and
>> careful engineering, and hacking something with a Python workbench
>> and
>> an RDB in a few hours. If the market wants cheap knockoffs, they
>> get
>> what they pay for.
>>
>> IMO, the reason for the lack of success in the noble endeavour that
>> is
>> the Semantic Web is the competing noble endeavours Google and
>> Wikipedia.
>>
>> They are all about finding the information you need.
>>
>> The Semantic Web idea is that experts annotate documents to put
>> their
>> content in a perspective of the consensus knowledge in an area.
>> And if
>> what you are looking for is reliable content in any academic
>> discipline,
>> this is the (long) established view of how to get it. The only
>> difference is that we are trying to automate the knowledge
>> association
>> and selection process. The problem with the Semantic Web is that
>> we
>> haven't yet made it easy for the experts to do the annotation, and
>> there
>> is no existing critical mass of "consensus ontologies" that defines
>> the
>> perspectives the experts want to refer to. The entry cost of doing
>> it
>> this way is high.
>>
>> The Google idea is that software can statistically annotate
>> documents
>> according to what it actually sees in them. The "semantics" of the
>> resulting linkages is "emergent", not "designed in". This
>> technique
>> makes a lot more information accessible, because it doesn't require
>> the
>> experts and the established views. But it assumes that in academic
>> disciplines what is actually available will be dominated by the
>> works of
>> experts and by the established views. The actual statistical
>> performance does not support this. Many or most of the links are
>> not
>> very reliable, because the published information is dominated by
>> students, marketers, bloggers, etc., only some of whom really are
>> experts. Google is very effective at indexing information of all
>> kinds,
>> and the cost for everyone but the Google organization is
>> non-existent,
>> but for that reason, there is a definite caveat emptor.
>>
>> The Wikipedia idea is that a lot of basic knowledge can be gathered
>> in a
>> theoretically expert reference that is maintained by a community,
>> and
>> the community will be dominated by the consensus knowledge. And
>> that
>> has proved to be largely true. At the same time, Wikipedia has
>> "thought
>> police" whose duty is to eliminate articles they see as
>> self-serving or
>> lacking a broad community of interest and expertise. Quality has a
>> social and intellectual price.
>>
>> Which of these is the right way? All of them. Which will succeed?
>> Google and Wikipedia already have established themselves, but
>> Wikipedia
>> will never be as broad as some would want, and Google will never be
>> as
>> reliable. And OBTW, _all_ of these required some serious
>> engineering
>> and some very heavy software systems design. Google, like Rome,
>> was not
>> built in a day.
>>
>> But the Semantic Web is suffering from another malady --
>> infighting.
>> The Semantic Web is currently an "anti-social network". Ontology
>> development and document annotation is largely funded by
>> government-provided research money, and too much effort is being
>> spent
>> on directing the flow of the water to the favorite mill and too
>> little
>> on grinding the grain. If we really want the Semantic Web to
>> succeed,
>> we have to declare some winners and some losers and get on with the
>> work. (See disclaimer below. ;-))
>>
>> -Ed
>>
>>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
> Subscribe/Config:
> http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
> Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
> To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> (06)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (07)
|