Part of The Twenty-First National Conference on Artificial Intelligence:

“The special track on “AI and the Web” features technical papers on the use of AI techniques, systems, and concepts involving the Web. The emphasis is on papers in two active research areas: (1) using text and language analysis to interpret and understand natural language text found on the web and (2) developing and exploiting “Semantic Web” languages and systems that explicitly encode knowledge using languages such as RDF and OWL. Innovative papers in other areas describing research involving both AI and the Web are included.”

AAAI-06 Artificial Intelligence and the Web Special Technical Track

I’ve moved the site entirely into WordPress CMS, so you may find some anomalies here and there.

The RSS feeds should work (let me know!).

There is no new content - this is simply a structural change, but at least there is now a consistent look throughout.

Everything’s CSS (style sheets) now. Everybody hates tables for layout. It’s “Boo tables” and “Hiss tables”. Well let me tell you, tables could make the sidebar drop right down to the footer. With CSS you have to resort to all sorts of tricks, but the fact is, CSS can’t do it. This is progress? I hope somebody’s happy, because I never had anything against tables. Tables rock!

Sometimes I make dark allusions to an Internet index being the germ of a sentient artificial being which will grow to enslave us all. I’m an admittedly pessimistic person, but I think it’s almost inevitable. As a proponent of an open index, I’m a shill for our future overlords, but if I’m going to get to select who becomes my master, I’d prefer a benign one dedicated to public service. The problem with a distributed index, is that it has no obvious ‘off’ switch.

In 1993, science fiction author and mathematician Vernor Vinge wrote The Coming Technological Singularity.

‘Technological singularity’ refers to that point in time - perhaps in the next 20 years, when the technology we have invented becomes smart enough to surpass us in creation. At that point, we become obsolete.

I really do see a comprehensive index as being a significant component of a superhuman intelligence. After all, it is the point of access to human knowledge and experience; a magnificent database. Usually, I feel a little shiver of dread - I believe that an evolved intelligence owes us no more allegiance than we owe our evolutionary ancestors and companions.

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From August’s Wired magazine, here’s a forward-looking and enthusiastic view of the web and its significance. It’s a good read if you’re feeling discouraged and need to be reminded why the Internet is so cool, and why you just can’t leave its destiny to people who don’t love it the way you do!

“Weaving nerves out of glass and radio waves, our species began wiring up all regions, all processes, all facts and notions into a grand network. From this embryonic neural net was born a collaborative interface for our civilization, a sensing, cognitive device with power that exceeded any previous invention. The Machine provided a new way of thinking (perfect search, total recall) and a new mind for an old species. It was the Beginning.”

The web is a proto-intelligence, comparable to a brain, and you and I are witnesses to the beginning of it.

Wired: We Are the Web

Perpetual footnote: If you create an intelligence, you’re eventually going to have to set it free.

There’s still a few days to get yourself over to the ‘2005 workshop on Open Source Web Information Retrieval’ in France (http://www.emse.fr/OSWIR05/).

According to the call for papers:

The World Wide Web has grown to be a primary source of information for millions
of people. Due to the size of the Web, search engines have become the major
access point for this information. However, “commercial” search engines use
hidden algorithms that put the integrity of their results in doubt, so there is
a need for some open source Web search engines.

For a main entry page on the overall conference, see http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/WI05/.