Shirky on the Semantic Web

Clay Shirky writes on the semantic web, explaining syllogism (a form of logic, first described by Aristotle, where “…certain things being stated, something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being so” ), and providing the big picture, concluding that: “Much of the proposed value of the Semantic Web is coming, but it is not coming because of the Semantic Web. The amount of meta-data we generate is increasing dramatically, and it is being exposed for consumption by machines as well as, or instead of, people. But it is being designed a bit at a time, out of self-interest and without regard for global ontology. It is also being adopted piecemeal, and it will bring with it with all the incompatibilities and complexities that implies. There are significant disadvantages to this process relative to the shining vision of the Semantic Web, but the big advantage of this bottom-up design and adoption is that it is actually working now.”