Peter Yim wrote:
> [ppy] I watched the PBS program last night, and think it was *really*
> well done (considering the audience they are airing this to.) The only
> disappointment (to me, at least) is that the "O" word did not appear
> even once. :-)
> (01)
This jest accidentally raises a point we should be aware of. Most of
Watson is not about 'formalizing knowledge' in the way we do with
ontologies. It is about extracting, interpreting, and integrating the
knowledge contained in natural language corpora. I'm sure that some
part of the innards of Watson is based on what we would call an "upper
ontology", but NLP existed for 40 years before that buzzword came into
use. So we should not be surprised that people who are actively
extracting knowledge from natural language text are only going to talk
about its relationship to 'ontologies', when (a) they actually use
formal logic knowledge structures, and (b) they are talking to academic
audiences or funding sources for whom 'ontology' is a key buzzword. (02)
Artificial Intelligence takes many forms, and it always has. 'Ontology'
is just one of them, and, assuming that the term is well-defined, it is
marginally relevant to how Watson, and many other valuable AI tools, work. (03)
I apologize for raining on your joke, Peter, but there are lots of
valuable AI technologies, and making formal logic models of the world is
only one of many, and may not turn out to be the most valuable. We need
to keep our work in perspective. "By their fruits shall ye know them."
When NOVA features a splashy success that is based on formal ontologies,
then you will hear the O word on PBS. ;-) (04)
-Ed (05)
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 (06)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (07)
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