Google says web users are too stupid for semantics

A GOOGLE executive told Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee that his idea for a Semantic Web will not work because users are too stupid.

Google Director of Search and AAAI Fellow Peter Norvig cornered Berners-Lee at a Boston conference on artificial intelligence where he gave the keynote.

Berners-Lee had the crowds excited with his ideas about making data accessible for artificial intelligence to locate and analyse, which he calls a Semantic Web.

However Norvig dismissed the idea because it required web masters to use semantic languages in addition to HTML. He said that Google was not against the idea of a semantic web, but there were many things that need to be overcome. The biggest was that users were too incompetent.

Google deals with millions of Web masters who can't configure a server, can't write HTML. It's hard for them to go to the next step, Norvig said.

He also pointed out that every day Google was faced with people who try to rank higher in the results and then try to sell someone Viagra when that's not what they are looking for. If AI was running a Semantic Web, then it would be a lot easier for people to be deceptive.

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