The Promises of Web 3.0

Put off by the unfulfilled hype of Web 2.0, some in the knowledge management community are now clamoring for Web 3.0. Dr. David J. Roberts, Chief Scientist at iBASEt, writes in Oracle's Profit Online that Web 2.0 technologies aren't really worth the bother and that the real value sought by enterprises lies in Web 3.0 technologies.

The compelling promise offered by Web 3.0 technologies is the ability to make inferences between contextually linked information thereby pulling new, creative combinations out of knowledge bases automatically. This is the holy grail of knowledge managers; to get machines to be able to reason, even just slightly, would offer a great deal of value.

With such a compelling value proposition as reasoning will Web 3.0 technologies render Web 2.0 worthless? There are still some very large obstacles to Web 3.0 as Roberts has described, i.e. machines can't handle ambiguity and major pieces of the Web 3.0 language (ontologies) have yet to be produced.

But is the interim value of Web 2.0 technologies really that low? Web 2.0 technologies provide integration for well defined processes, and it’s the fact that they must be well defined that renders them inflexible and in need of constant maintenance. Yet this integration is indeed quite valuable, too valuable to be left on the shelf until Web 3.0 is ready for prime time. The future world of Web 3.0 is indeed rosy but don't count Web 2.0 out just yet.

AI – Semantic Web Link

Back in the day when computers read punch cards and spun tape drives, popular thought was that they would soon develop human-like intelligence, i.e. artificial intelligence (actually artificial general intelligence). Over the past 50 or so years, AI has had enough spins on the hype cycle to effectively deflate any expectations. But a recent article in Dr. Dobb's Journal claims that AI: It’s OK Again! Time to get back on that hype cycle?

Although the AGI folks claim the AI folks have sold out, AI has been making some progress as an engineering practice in areas such as natural language processing, speech recognition, vision and search. Although Tim Berners-Lee says the Semantic Web is not AI, the author of the article thinks that SW is a fertile knowledge base for AI.

Semantic Web does in fact resemble the "connectionist" theme of AI; the theory that to understand brain behavior you must develop a model of the brain's physical structure; neurons and synapses. The connectivity of SW would therefore mimic this physical structure.

The AGI folks believe that computers will exceed the intelligence of humans any where from nine to 40 years from now. I wonder if I could teach one to blog?

Semantic Web in Health IT

Brian Robinson has written an article on Semantic Web/Web 3.0 (although they are hardly synonyms) in GovernmentHealthIT. Dr. Parsa Mirhaji, director of the Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Informatics Research at the University of Texas, is quoted as saying: "people now have to log on to five or six different systems to get complete information about patients." The assumption is that when everything complies with Semantic Web that will be unnecessary, that this information will be linked semantically between systems. No more endless searches to find the information that you are looking for.

Mirhaji doesn't stop at simply integrating the information though. Computational models based on SW will allow computers to make inferences much like humans. One immediate use of SW is the ability to normalize the medical nomenclature; equating terms that mean the same thing.

Oracle is on the bandwagon and promoting the wonders of SW. Bob Shimp, VP of Oracle's Global Technology Business Unit, is hopeful that SW technologies will be in use in health IT in the next couple years.

Web 3.0 Already?

In the midst of the Web 2.0 hype cycle is it time to begin the buzz on Web 3.0? Although Web 2.0 was a big step forward, its limitations are becoming apparent even as its definition has only just been resolved. The connections put in place by Web 2.0 by social networking, folksonomies and tagging have provided a higher level of functionality for some applications, but the connections are only loosely defined. Much more powerful functionality will come with better defined connections and structured frameworks.

Although the term Web 3.0 was never used by the founders of Semantic Web, there is a growing acceptance that the two are synonymous. Certainly the proponents of Semantic Web technologies, including Tim Berners-Lee, could benefit from the idea that their ideas will form the next version of the Web. And it appears that the public is ready for the technology as well, the functionality if not the demands it will require.

So what can Web 3.0 do that 2.0 cannot? For one it helps computers better "understand" terms used on the Web. What is the difference between a book and a basketball? Simpler technologies would recognize that they are spelled differently and that would be it. Web 3.0 will categorize them and provide them with a set of associations that will define what they are. A book is a subject that contains information and is associated to readers by a relationship called "is read by." Many such associations can connect the book to other objects, i.e. "is stored on" a bookshelf. As these associated networks grow, more knowledge about what a book is, and how it is distinguished from a basketball, is compiled and a clearer vision of book is developed.

This is a similar process to human learning and, like humans, as the knowledge networks grow they will become more "intelligent." The process will begin with specific knowledge domains, such as libraries of books, airline travel or drug development, and continue, theoretically, until the barriers between the domains break down and connections through the entire Web are established.

One obstacle will be the structure imposed by the Semantic Web. Web 2.0 calls for a very informal structure where users apply their own tags however they see fit or not at all. Semantic Web on the other hand, requires strict adherence if it's going to function correctly.

But the pay off for applying structure is inference and reasoning; the ability for the software to make connections when given the proper data. This ranges from simple inferences such as: if hepatitis is a disease and it occurs in the liver, it must be a disease of the liver. Although not rocket science for humans, assembling networks of logical statements in a structured framework will be a big step forward for computers.

Much of human knowledge is acquired over time and through experiences. This type of knowledge is stored away in the brain to be pulled out at a later time when certain associations may be required, say in diagnosing a disease. A less experienced physician may not have experienced a patient with certain symptoms that an older colleague would have. But an effective Web 3.0 knowledge base may supplement the less experienced physician's knowledge and allow her to operate as if she had the knowledge possessed by the more experienced physician.

The value of such a system in the hands of a skilled user is to rapidly amplify the knowledge that they can process. Web 3.0 technology has been called "XML on steroids." Given the discipline that is required to implement it however, its use will be constrained to only the most valuable markets for the near term.