Towards semantic web agents: Knowledge Web and AgentLink

Towards semantic web agents: Knowledge Web and AgentLink: "This paper presents an overview on the role of agents in the Semantic Web, that was the topic of the AgentLink Technical Forum Group on "Semantic Web Agents", aimed at fostering closer collaboration between the European communities working in these areas. The paper is structured in three main sections. In the first one, we argue how agents are an essential component of the Semantic Web, then we provide a brief history, by no means comprehensive, of how the Semantic Web vision -- that includes agents -- has evolved in the past fifteen years. We then conclude reporting on the topics presented and discussed during the Technical Forum."

The Semantic Web Revisited

ECS EPrints Service - The Semantic Web Revisited: "The original Scientific American article on the Semantic Web appeared in 2001. It described the evolution of a Web that consisted largely of documents for humans to read to one that included data and information for computers to manipulate. The Semantic Web is a Web of actionable information--information derived from data through a semantic theory for interpreting the symbols. This simple idea, however, remains largely unrealized. Shopbots and auction bots abound on the Web, but these are essentially handcrafted for particular tasks; they have little ability to interact with heterogeneous data and information types. Because we haven't yet delivered large-scale, agent-based mediation, some commentators argue that the Semantic Web has failed to deliver. We argue that agents can only flourish when standards are well established and that the Web standards for expressing shared meaning have progressed steadily over the past five years. Furthermore, we see the use of ontologies in the e-science community presaging ultimate success for the Semantic Web--just as the use of HTTP within the CERN particle physics community led to the revolutionary success of the original Web. This article is part of a special issue on the Future of AI."