Wikipedia 3.0: The End of Google?
Wikipedia 3.0: The End of Google?
June 26, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized, Google, Web 2.0, web standards, Web2.0, SemanticWeb, vision, Startup, Wikipedia, GoogleBase, Semantic Web, Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, AI, Reasoning, ontology, oWL, Web 3.0, Inference Engine, vision building, computer reasoning, ontoworld — evolvingtrends @ 5:18 am
The Semantic Web (or Web 3.0) promises to “organize the world’s information” in a dramatically more logical way than Google can ever achieve with their current engine design. This is specially true from the point of view of machine comprehension as opposed to human comprehension.The Semantic Web requires the use of a declarative ontological language like OWL to produce domain-specific ontologies that machines can use to reason about information and make new conclusions, not simply match keywords.
However, the Semantic Web, which is still in a development phase where researchers are trying to define the best and most usable design models, would require the participation of thousands of knowledgeable people over time to produce those domain-specific ontologies necessary for its functioning.
Machines (or machine-based reasoning, aka AI software or ‘info agents’) would then be able to use those laboriously constructed ontologies to build a view (or formal model) of how the individual terms in a given chunk of information relate to each other. Those relationships can be thought of as the axioms (basic assumptions), which together with the rules governing the inference process both enable as well as constrain the interpretation (and well-formed use) of those terms by the info agents to reason new conclusions based on existing information, i.e. to think. In other words, theorems (formal deductive propositions that are provable based on the axioms and the rules of inference) may be generated by the software, thus allowing formal deductive reasoning at the machine level. And given that an ontology, as described here, is a statement of Logic Theory, two or more independent info agents processing the same domain-specific ontology will be able to collaborate and deduce an answer to a query, without being driven by the same software.
Thus, and as stated, in the Semantic Web individual machine-based agents (or a collaborating group of agents) will be able to understand and use information by translating concepts and deducing new information rather than just matching keywords.
Once machines can understand and use information in a standard way, the world will never be the same. It will be possible to have an info agent (or many info agents) among your virtual AI-enhanced workforce each having access to different domain specific comprehension space and all communicating with each other to build a collective consciousness.
You’ll be able to ask your info agent or agents to find you the nearest restaurant that serves Italian cuisine, even if the restaurant nearest you advertises itself as a Pizza joint as opposed to an Italian restaurant. But that is just a very simple example of the deductive reasoning machines will be able to perform on information they have.
Far more awesome implications can be seen when you consider that every area of human knowledge will be automatically within the comprehension space of your info agents. That is because each info agent can communicate with other info agents who are specialized in different domains of knowledge to produce a collective consciousness (using the Borg metaphor) that encompasses all human knowledge. The collective “mind” of those agents-as-the-Borg will be the Ultimate Answer Machine, easily displacing Google from this position, which it does not truly fulfill.
The problem with the Semantic Web, besides that researchers are still debating which design and implementation of the ontology language model (and associated technologies) is the best and most usable, is that it would take thousands or tens of thousands of knowledgeable people many years to boil down human knowledge to domain specific ontologies.
However, if we were at some point to take the Wikipedia community and give them the right tools and standards to work with (whether existing or to be developed in the future), which would make it possible for reasonably skilled individuals to help reduce human knowledge to domain-specific ontologies, then that time can be shortened to just a few years, and possibly to as little as two years.
The emergence of a Wikipedia 3.0 (as in Web 3.0, aka Semantic Web) that is built on the Semantic Web model will herald the end of Google as the Ultimate Answer Machine. It will be replaced with “WikiMind” which will not be a mere search engine like Google is but a true Global Brain: a powerful pan-domain inference engine, with a vast set of ontologies (a la Wikipedia 3.0) covering all domains of human knowledge, that can reason and deduce answers and not just throw some information at you using the rudimentary concept of the ’search engine.’
Notes
After writing the original post I found out that the Wikipedia application, also known as MediaWiki and not to be confused with Wikipedia.org, has already been used to implement ontologies. The name that they’ve chosen is Ontoworld. I think WikiMind or WikiBorg would have been a cooler name, but I like ontoworld, too, as in “and it descended onto the world,” since that may be a reference to the global mind a Semantic-Web-enabled OntoWorld would lead to.
In just a few years Google’s search engine technology, which provides almost all of their revenue, could be made obsolete… That is unless they have a deal with Ontoworld where they will tap into their database of ontologies and add an inference engine capability to Google search.
But so can Ask.com and MSN and Yahoo.
I would really love to see more competition in this arena, not to see Google or any one company establish a huge lead over others.
The question, to rephrase in Churchillian terms, is wether the combination of the Semantic Web and Wikipedia signals the beginning of the end for Google or the end of the beginning. Obviously, with tens of billions of dollars at stake in investors’ money, I would think that it is the latter. No one wants to see Google fail. There’s too much vested interest. However, I do want to see somebody out maneuver them (which can be done in my opinion.)
Clarification
Please note that Ontoworld, which currently implements the ontologies, is based on the “Wikipedia” application (also known as MediaWiki), but it is not the same as Wikipedia.org.
Likewise, I expect Wikipedia.org will use their volunteer workforce to reduce the sum of human knowledge that has been entered into their database to domain-specific ontologies for the Semantic Web. Hence, “Wikipedia 3.0.”
Posted by Marc Fawzi
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