Web 3.0: Loosening the reins

Posted by: Stephen Baker on November 27

Valeria Maltoni has a nice big link-laden post on Web 3.0. (a subject that has generated a lot of conversation here.) She talks about a Web that is smaller, not larger, and targeted to our interests, friendships and needs.

This sentence caught my eye: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents will pull information for us on the basis of parameters we establish and control.”

It sounds reasonable. But the best way to use those tools, it seems to me, will be to relinquish much of our control. The more control we exert, the more we limit our circles of knowledge and contacts to what we already know and trust. This creates mental monoculture and social stagnation. The really good A.I. systems (like good magazine editors) will find stuff that we never dreamed would be interesting, but is. It will open our minds—if we let it.

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Reader Comments

Sander Hoeken

November 27, 2007 04:03 PM

Sorry, but just writing down trends does not make it 3.0
I just hate these articles that sum up trends and call it Web 3.0 Calling something 3.0, 4.0, does not help to professionalize an industry!

I still can't explain to oudsiders why we call it Web 2.0... Let's just call it customarization. The consumer is in the driver seat for the first time in history... it's not a thing, it's an era... Sorry Tim Oreilly, I think technology has only been just the enabler... it would have happened without AJAX!

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In Blogspotting Senior Writer Stephen Baker and Associate Editor Heather Green take a look at how cutting-edge technologies are changing business and society. Whether its blogs or wikis, data crunching or data targeting, technology’s advances are reshaping the world that we live in.

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