According to one technology strategy consultancy, the next important phase of the Internet will be the Semantic Web. Operating under the direction, do what I mean and find what I mean, this new Web could transform the meaning of community building – and have supply chain applications as well.

If you had told the average person in 1970 that most of the world would soon have interconnected computers that would become a necessary part of both work and play, that person would have told you, flat-out, that you’d gone completely ’round the bend. Yet, here we are. While that which has already happened is now so common as to be transparent, what’s about to happen is certainly—at this moment in time—weird science.

Only ten years after Netscape went public, the Internet has become a part of our daily lives—both at home and at work—and is intricately woven into most elements of society. Just as a start, convenience, functionality, productivity, and price—thanks to the Internet—will never be the same. For businesses, certainly the most important function enabled by the ‘net is collecting, storing, managing, disseminating, and reporting knowledge. Sometimes, companies achieve previously unattainable levels of productivity and, for example, customer data. Complex organizations and infrastructures have been and are continuing to be created but, according to Mark Federmen, Chief Strategist, McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, University of Toronto, we’re still missing something. “There is always something of which we are unaware. No matter how much knowledge we have of our operations, our customers, our markets, our competitors, there is always more to know. So perhaps we’re going about it all wrong.”

Federman continues, “We create elaborate mental models of how things are supposed to work. We create conceptions, and then manage our affairs so that our business attempts match those preconceived notions.” Here’s the trick. Our conceptions, according to Federman, are not sufficient to fully understand all the effects that are actually happening in and around our institutions and enterprises. Intense focus on knowledge controls our beliefs. Beliefs control what we’re able to see.

Visionary Marshall McLuhan observed, “One thing about which fish know exactly nothing is water, since they have no anti-environment which would enable them to perceive the element they live in.” The challenge, follows Federman, is to notice the formerly unnoticed.

Today’s battle cry, ‘Content is king!’ doesn’t only apply to publishers, but to virtually every person and every business, as ‘content’ is knowledge. According to Dale Hunscher, CEO, South Wind Design, Inc., a technology strategy consultancy in Ann Arbor, Mich., however, “Knowledge is not an inherent property of content—More information does not automatically translate into more knowledge! Knowledge is a extension of your conceptual framework as the result of stimuli you receive—stimuli that come from the message and the medium. Extension of the conceptual framework can’t be forced by any amount of information—you can’t know something you’re not ready to learn!”

Where’s all of this leading? Internet2? Well, Internet2 and projects such as PlanetLab are technologies, with some elements of artificial intelligence. Sure, it’s all going to get faster. Much faster. But bandwidth and intermediary devices in and of themselves won’t necessarily open new doors, just bigger and safer ones. For instance, you’ll soon be able to share DVD-quality video of a mechanical engineering project with a coworker on the other side of the planet. Cool stuff, but it’s only an evolution from the smaller files that are now shared.

According to Hunscher, the next important phase of the Internet will be the Semantic Web, which has both human- and machine-centric facets. “From the user’s standpoint, the Semantic Web will have two goals: Do What I Mean, and Find What I Mean.

The machine-centric facet will involve more or less complete extensions of our selves—”software-based androids”—operating independently and autonomously in cyberspace. Hunscher recognizes that such proxies already exist in the form of automated bots and spiders, but these act based only on their programming. Even an RSS reader, for example, could be considered a form of bot, as it connects to user-specified data feeds and automatically retrieves the latest content that—individually—we want to see.

Hunscher poses the question about bots and spiders, however, “What could they do if they were more intelligent?”

Calling media proxies “The Next Step in Machine Intelligence,” Hunscher offers the following examples of smarter bots and spiders:

Community Building
Imagine your new home connecting you and your family with others in the area with similar interests, even working with other intelligent homes to arrange get-togethers to welcome you into the community

Energy Conservation
Imagine a region wherein all energy-using appliances share knowledge of energy usage patterns and collectively plan how to work together to minimize cost and environmental impact

Medical Diagnosis
Imagine a world in which the doctor’s office, hospital, pharmacy, and plan providers inter-operate to minimize costs and risks while maximizing quality and timeliness of care

Research
Imagine a world where your natural-language queries are answered cooperatively by a global network of libraries, working with you interactively to clarify and further specify your desired results

Hunscher also posits that media proxies which extend our selves will be a quantum leap from our current technology.

Imagine, for example, the impact of such technology on the supply chain. Imagine media proxies for all of the individuals involved in managing the Hurricane Katrina response not only gathering information from an extremely wide variety of sources including live weather feeds, but assimilating and acting upon that data to bring together all of the elements that were lacking this time around. For example, intelligent media proxies could—while simultaneously gathering and assimilating this data—automatically trigger active road and highway alerts to better and more safely distribute evacuee traffic; automatically alert and guide rescue and relief agencies; communicate to engineering and rescue personnel specifically where levee breaches are beginning to occur; and marshal supply chain elements involving food and water.

Compared to human intelligence, machine intelligence currently lacks “…the contextual tools needed to initiate, maintain, and refine complex sequences of action based on high-level goals.” Humans fit events into our world view, adapt, and move on. Humans can integrate new facts into their conceptions as new information arrives. Humans can operate in the face of uncertainty or contradiction and discard invalid facts.

According to Hunscher, the machine-centric Semantic Web will extend our capacities of inference, “…the very capacities that ultimately define our humanity!—into a world populated by media proxies…”.

Will these extensions of our selves ever be created? How will they be created? How will they hold intelligence that is unique to each individual, and which portions of that intelligence? How will their data gathering and actions be regulated, controlled, and secured? Will it ever be possible for them to gain intelligence independent of their ‘hosts’?

Interesting stuff. I also want to know if my media proxy will be having more fun than I am. Probably so.

McLuhan Thinking: Integral Awareness in the Connected Society
Mark Federman, Chief Strategist, McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology
University of Toronto
http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/IntegralAwarenessintheConnectedSociety.pdf

The Laws of (New) Media: Marshall McLuhan and Knowledge Technologies
Dale Hunscher, CEO, South Wind Design, Inc.
www2.gca.org/knowledgetechnologies/2001/proceedings/Hunscher%20Slides.ppt