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Title: Where Are the Semantics in the Semantic Web?
Author: Michael Uschold
Journal: AI Magazine
Volume: 24
Number: 3
Pages: 25--36
Year: 2003
Abstract: The most widely accepted defining feature of the Semantic Web is machine-usable content. By this definition, the Semantic Web is already manifest in shopping agents that automatically access and use Web content to find the lowest air fares, or book prices. But where are the semantics? Most people regard the Semantic Web as a vision, not a reality so shopping agents should not count . To use Web content, machines need to know what to do when they encounter it. This in turn, requires the machine to know what the content means (i.e. its semantics). The challenge of developing the Semantic Web is how to put this knowledge into the machine. The manner in which this is done is at the heart of the confusion about the Semantic Web. The goal of this paper is to clear up some of this confusion. We proceed by describing a variety of meanings of the term semantics , noting various things that can be said to have semantics of various kinds. We introduce a semantic continuum ranging from implicit semantics, which are only in the heads of the people who use the terms, to formal semantics for machine processing. We list some core requirements for enabling machines to use Web content, and we consider various issues such as hardwiring, agreements, clarity of semantics specifications, and public declarations of semantics. In light of these requirements and issues in conjunction with our semantic continuum, it is useful to collectively regard shopping agents as a degenerate case of the Semantic Web. Shopping agents work in the complete absence of any explicit account of the semantics of Web content because the meaning of the Web content that the agents are expected to encounter can be determined by the human programmers who hardwire it into the Web application software.

Cited by 63  -  Google Scholar

@Article{uschold03a,
  author =	 {Michael Uschold},
  title =	 {Where Are the Semantics in the Semantic Web?},
  googleid =	 {LJich9j_DVIJ:scholar.google.com/},
  journal =	 {{AI} Magazine},
  year =	 2003,
  volume =	 24,
  number =	 3,
  pages =	 {25--36},
  abstract =	 {The most widely accepted defining feature of the
                  Semantic Web is machine-usable content. By this
                  definition, the Semantic Web is already manifest in
                  shopping agents that automatically access and use
                  Web content to find the lowest air fares, or book
                  prices. But where are the semantics? Most people
                  regard the Semantic Web as a vision, not a reality
                  so shopping agents should not count . To use Web
                  content, machines need to know what to do when they
                  encounter it. This in turn, requires the machine to
                  know what the content means (i.e. its
                  semantics). The challenge of developing the Semantic
                  Web is how to put this knowledge into the
                  machine. The manner in which this is done is at the
                  heart of the confusion about the Semantic Web. The
                  goal of this paper is to clear up some of this
                  confusion. We proceed by describing a variety of
                  meanings of the term semantics , noting various
                  things that can be said to have semantics of various
                  kinds. We introduce a semantic continuum ranging
                  from implicit semantics, which are only in the heads
                  of the people who use the terms, to formal semantics
                  for machine processing. We list some core
                  requirements for enabling machines to use Web
                  content, and we consider various issues such as
                  hardwiring, agreements, clarity of semantics
                  specifications, and public declarations of
                  semantics. In light of these requirements and issues
                  in conjunction with our semantic continuum, it is
                  useful to collectively regard shopping agents as a
                  degenerate case of the Semantic Web. Shopping agents
                  work in the complete absence of any explicit account
                  of the semantics of Web content because the meaning
                  of the Web content that the agents are expected to
                  encounter can be determined by the human programmers
                  who hardwire it into the Web application software.},
  keywords =     {sweb},
  url =		 {http://jmvidal.cse.sc.edu/library/uschold03a.pdf},
  cluster = 	 {5912663191260534828}
}
Last modified: Wed Mar 9 10:15:55 EST 2011