[iDC] please make comments regarding semantic overlay term

[Danny Ayers]

On 17/03/2008, subbies at redheadedstepchild.org

>  As for "the point is that interpretation by a human in context is where
>  meaning is defined" - I would completely agree with this, which is
>  precisely why I think you're tilting at windmills.  In spite of that
>  pretty statement you made, the ROOT of your argument is in fact a
>  complaint that machines are not currently capable of human nuance, that
>  they are not able to glean meaning from data.
>
>  To glean meaning is not the purpose of machines.  To glean meaning is the
>  purpose of humans.  The purpose of machines is to assist humans with tasks
>  that are too herculean for them to complete unaided.  Given the vast
>  amount of data presented to us, interpreting it all, unaided, in its naked
>  glory, is quite impossible.  To that end, machines are needed to sift.
>  But they are not, nor should they be, employed to derive meaning from the
>  data.  The only way that would be possible is if AI were a reality, which,
>  currently, it is not.

This seems a very good summary of the current position (although I'm
still very optimistic about the level at which computers can help
humans - smart sifting...).

When I first got into computers I was seriously naive in my
expectations for near-term AI. But I'm not actually disappointed in
the progress that's been made - we might not have the autonomous
agents serving our every need just yet, but we have something almost
certainly comparable in terms of benefits. The net and especially the
web is a huge step forward in augmenting our abilities, individually,
as communities, and hopefully as a species. Doug Engelbart seems to
have got something else right ;-)

Cheers,
Danny.

-- 
http://dannyayers.com
~
http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/this_weeks_semantic_web/