Web 2.0 vs. the Semantic Web: A Philosophical Assessment

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Episteme, volume 6, 2009, Pages 25-37
DOI 10.3366/E174236000800052X

The paper develops some of the conclusions, reached in Floridi (2007), concerning the future developments of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their impact on our lives.

The two main theses supported in that article were that, as the information society develops, the threshold between online and offline is becoming increasingly blurred, and that once there won't be any significant difference, we shall gradually re-conceptualise ourselves not as cyborgs but rather as inforgs, i.e. socially connected, informational organisms.

In this paper, I look at the development of the so-called Semantic Web and Web 2.0 from this perspective and try to forecast their future. Regarding the Semantic Web, I argue that it is a clear and well-defined project, which, despite some authoritative views to the contrary, is not a promising reality and will probably fail in the same way AI has failed in the past. Regarding Web 2.0, I argue that, although it is a rather ill-defined project, which lacks a clear explanation of its nature and scope, it does have the potentiality of becoming a success (and indeed it is already, as part of the new phenomenon of Cloud Computing) because it leverages the only semantic engines available so far in nature, us.

I conclude by suggesting what other changes might be expected in the future of our digital environment.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMon Feb 16, 12:01:00 am

    read the paper, Luciano, and am very very happy somebody finally is 'clearly and distinctively' telling it like it is.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ChristianMon Mar 16, 11:54:00 pm

    Hi Mr Floridi,

    was reading your paper for my masters' exam preparation and I must say was delighted by it.

    It was good to see that some step back and had a look at it without getting entangled in the technological side of the web.

    I hope you statement that humans are the only "semantic engine" will endure for a long time, otherwise we might make ourselves redundant, as so many times before.

    Nevertheless I hope the Semantic Web or maybe better MetaSyntactic Web will happen eventually to increase the ease the burden of information retrieval. In this context i am looking forward to the release of full-flavored promised search engine "Wolfram Alpha" (www.wolframalpha.com).

    The main question might be how much "semantic" information can one get out of the "web 2.0" to enrich "semantic" searches on the web.

    Thank you for you paper!

    Christian Sax

    ReplyDelete

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