RE: [ba-ohs-talk] Re: Semantic web meta data - Trustworthy Systems
The mention of belief in computer 'reasoning' reminds me of something my associate Bill Anderson and I have been working through. It is about trusting and what we trust in. And how trust is defined as well as what it means for a person or a system to be demonstrably trustworthy. (01)
I recommend (02)
[MacKenzie2001]
MacKenzie, Donald A. Mechanizing Proof: Computing, Risk, and Trust. MIT Press (Cambridge, MA: 2001). Inside Technology Series. ISBN 0-262-13393-8 hard cover, alkaline paper. (03)
I have started to put annotated-bibliography entries, with further links, including for this book, at
http://orcmid.com/readings/trust.htm (04)
There is a review of the MacKenzie book by Peter Neumann on ACM Ubiquity:
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/book_reviews/p_neumann_4.html (05)
Robert Glass brought up the proof-of-correctness wars, which also figure in MacKenzie's historical treatment, in the current issue of Communications of the ACM. (06)
What brings this up for me is the growing realization on the degree to which trust is involved in the mathematical sciences, including computer science (so construed), and the [mal-/anti-]applications of them in the devising of everyday artifacts (such as the friendly desktop software I am entrusting these words to). I think that trust arises in the unarticulated background for KM, Semantic Web, and probably OHS. Certainly when we move from the extensional nature of what the particular artifacts might be to the intensions of the users of the artifacts and the posture of the designers and promoters of the artifacts, and the various decisions that are made in reflecting a particular view of the world in the artifact. (07)
I have lately been taking myself through a rather unsettling (in the sense that I am not at all certain how it will turn out) exploration of the degree to which trust is involved in the application of something so seemingly-simple as axiomatic set theory or the simple axiomatization of arithmetic/number-theory. (08)
Now, with my attention on trust and trustworthiness, I see how readily I interpret much of the material I have been exploring in those terms. Nevertheless, I do think it is a matter that will apply for an OHS and certainly for a deployed OHS among a community of people who will have various beliefs about it and what the OHS (rather than the community) is accomplishing. The prospects for what I hear called "category mistakes" are immense. (09)
I don't see a resolution for my nagging concern about trust. I will work at not fretting about it, and also look to see how one could account for it in an OHS as applied. I will also look for a *small* (no, *tiny*) problem to exercise and articulate my growing interest in trust and trustworthiness. (010)
-- Dennis (011)
Dennis E. Hamilton
AIIM DMware Technical Coordinator
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The Miser Project http://miser-theory.info/ (012)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
[mailto:owner-ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org]On Behalf Of Murray Altheim
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 04:44
To: ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
Subject: Re: [ba-ohs-talk] Re: Semantic web meta data (013)
[ ... ] (014)
"a search program correctly locates a person based on
an assortment of partially remembered knowledge: her last name is
"Cook," she works for a company on your client list, and she has a
son attending your alma mater. [...] More generally, semantics
will enable complicated processes and transactions to be carried
out automatically." [1] The fact that you never locate a *person*
on the web (only info about them, which might not even be current)
seems to have escaped the authors. Gad, what a bunch of hooey. Try
locating someone [sic] on the Web when those references are in
three different languages. (015)
Like in the movie "Brazil", I can imagine a lot of erroneous arrests
and other such nightmares should people start believing the ability
of computer reasoning. Wasn't that movie "Wargames" about this same
topic? (016)
Murray (017)
[1] "The Semantic Web: A new form of Web content that is meaningful
to computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities",
Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, Scientific American,
May 2001, pp. 34.
......................................................................
Murray Altheim <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK (018)
If it wants to be a global power and a player in the
Atlantic alliance, Europe has to get back into the
business of making war. -- Newsweek Magazine, June 3, 2002 (019)