Knowledge is Power: The Semantic Web Vision

Good science periodically revisits old results in the context of new discoveries and technologies. In this way, new understanding is gained of the earlier results and, sometimes, new insights can be gained into current work. This in turn can lead to new discoveries, and so the process continues. In this paper, we revisit the generalization known as the “knowledge principle,” introduced more than twenty years ago to explain the source of power of expert systems. We show that in a new context, the power of knowledge will come from the distribution and decentralization of knowledge that is ubiquitously developed and applied. In the new semantic web concept, tools are provided to the large population of WWW users that allow those individuals (perhaps millions of them) to encode small bodies of knowledge that can be integrated into an effective large knowledge base. The metaphor of “knowledge is power” thus changes from one of the centralized power to one of distributed power.