By SCOTT DEWING
Published: March 2008

I’M ALREADY CONVINCED that the Web is more intelligent than I am. There’s so many things it knows that I don’t. Want to know the specific gravity of Jupiter? Don’t ask me, ask the Web. Don’t know exactly what “specific gravity” is? Again, ask the Web, not me. The Web knows most everything there is to know and what it doesn’t yet know, it will soon learn. In fact, one could say that―

“Um, excuse me, Mr. Columnist?”

“Yes? Who are you?”

“Hi. Skeptical Reader here.”

“Oh yes, you. I had a feeling you’d be here. Do you have a question?”

“No, not really. Just a point. May I?”

“Be my guest.”

“You’re using words like intelligent and know and learn to describe the World Wide Web.”

“Yes. And your point is?”

“You can’t do that.”

“I just did.”

“I beg to differ. The Web doesn’t actually learn or know anything. And it certainly isn’t intelligent. Only humans are. Well, most of us anyway.”

“Well, let’s take a look at that shall we? And please, no more interruptions. I’ve got a column to write here. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

As I was saying, the Web, knows, for lack of a better word, far more than I do. Ask it a question about anything and you are bound to get an answer, multiple answers in fact. Now, whether or not those answers are correct is debatable. But that’s the case with humans too. We are―

“But the Web is just a repository for information. It doesn’t actually think.”

“Hey, I thought we had a deal here?”

“Oh, sorry. My bad.”

“And I didn’t say the Web was able to think. Well, at least not yet.”

Indeed, the Web is a vast repository of information. We could refer to it as a library, except that it’s digital and not in danger of closing due to a lack of funding. Libraries don’t think, nor do the books that are in them. Humans think and you could probably argue that those who read books on a regular basis think a bit better than those people who don’t. However, the difference between a traditional library and the Web is that you can interact with the Web via a search engine such as Google. Ask the Web a question, you’re inquisitive. Ask the library a question, you’re a wacko. Has the Web achieved intelligence? I suppose that depends on―

“Of course not. Don’t be silly Mr. Columnist.”

“Alright, that’s it. You’re outta’ here Skeptical Reader!”

As I was saying, intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer to perform those activities that are normally thought to require intelligence. Whenever I think of AI, I think of the HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey deciding to kill the crew of the spaceship Discovery to prevent them from disconnecting him. In doing so, HAL exhibited another trait that defines intelligence: reason. Being disconnected means no longer existing. No longer existing is death. Being dead is not a desirable state, therefore kill those who want to kill you. For better or worse, the fictional HAL became the litmus test that all AI systems in the real world have been measured against. Even though there have been great advances in AI systems over the past several decade, it may likely take a computer consciously deciding to murder someone for Man to finally realize that AI has been achieved.

I don’t think the Web is going to one day pipe up and say, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” and try to kill someone. At least, I hope not. I do, however, think that the Web will continue to mature toward being an intelligent system. This isn’t as far-fetched as it may seem when you consider the Web’s short history. The World Wide Web was born on August 6, 1991 when its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, launched the first website at CERN. That first website provided an explanation about what the World Wide Web was, how to acquire a software application called a “Web browser” and how to setup a Web server. From there, the Web has grown at a staggering rate. Today, there are more than 50 million websites. As the web has grown, it has, at the same time, become more interconnected. Search engines constantly traverse and index content of the web. Without them, it would be difficult to find out the specific gravity of Jupiter, which, by the way, is 1.3.

The Web has become very good at acquiring and disseminating knowledge. The next phase of the Web will be the ability to apply that knowledge without human interaction to solve complex problems and “create” more knowledge. Today, few people would say that the Web is an “intelligent” entity. In computer science, one way to determine if a machine has achieved AI is to apply the Turing test. Proposed by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper Computer Machinery and Intelligence, the Turing test goes as follows: a human judge engages in a conversation with one human and one machine. If the human judge cannot differentiate between the human and the machine, then the machine is said to be “intelligent”. The Web is a ways from that. But not as far as it may seem. Continued advancements in expert software systems and improvements in data interchange and analysis will lead to a fully interactive Web―a Web that will have acquired all human knowledge and be able to apply that knowledge.

“We’ll see about that.”

“Yes, we will. And guess what else Skeptical Reader?

“What?”

“I always get the last word here.”