The document discusses the decentralization and recent re-centralization of knowledge on the web. It describes how Wikipedia and DBpedia originally allowed decentralized contributions to create shared knowledge but how companies like Google are now recentralizing this knowledge through proprietary resources like Google's Knowledge Graph that cannot be linked to or extended in the same way. It argues that this threatens the open and democratic nature of the original vision for the decentralized web.

1. The Decentralization of Knowledge
Harry Halpin (W3C/MIT)
Alexandre Monnin (Inria, expert Etalab)

2. The Hidden History of Google

3. Cybernetics is Not Enough

4. Putting the Symbols Back in the Machine
Artificial Intelligence, LISP, semantic networks

5. Knowledge Representation Hypothesis
Anymechanicallyembodiedintelligentprocesswillbecomprisedofstructuralingredientsthata)weasexternalobserversnaturallytaketorepresentapropositionalaccountoftheknowledgethattheoverallprocessexhibits,andb)independentofsuchexternalsemanticalattribution,playaformalbutcausalandessentialroleinengenderingthebehaviorthatmanifeststhatknowledge[Smith,1982].

6. The Frame Problem, Issues with what's in a Link and AI Winter

7. Afterthe AI winter: The SemanticWeb or Carnap onward
Carnap
McCarthy/Hayes
Berners- Lee/Hayes

8. AN intellectualgenealogy
Logical positivism (metrology)
Logical AI
Semantic Web/Linked Data

9. A tale of threeencyclopedias
Universal Encyclopedia of Unified Science
CYC
Wikipedia/DBpedia

10. The Web and decentralized knowledge

11. The Web, the Semantic Web and Wikipedia/DBpedia
First principle behind the Web : anyone can designate anything(any thing, any «resource»).

12. The Web, the Semantic Web and Wikipedia/DBpedia
FirstprinciplebehindtheSemanticWeb/LinkedData:theAAAprinciple.
«AnyonecansayAnythingaboutAnything», meaningthatanyonecandesignateanyresourcewithaURI,describeitwithanyresource(withotherURIs)andlinkittoanyresource(again,thankstoevenmoreURIs!).

13. The Web, the Semantic Web and Wikipedia/DBpedia
how do wecome to an agreement, wheredo wefindthe constituentsof a sharedworld? Wheredo wefinda «parliamentof things» (Latour)?
Short answer: Wikipediafor the Web, DBpediafor the Web of Data.
A centralizedplatformfor decentralizedcontributions

15. The re-centralization of the Web of knowledge

16. A parliament of things?
No,Google’sKnowledgeGraph:
Youcan’tlinktoitsresources(reusesthecommonknowledgeofWikipedia/Dbpediawithoutreinforcingthevirtuouscirclethatmadethempossible)
Controversyistreatedasadisposabledefect
FueledbyWikidata,aGoogle-fundedWikimediaprojecttoproducestructureddatafortheKnowledgeGraph(atrojanhorse?)
Ontologicaldemocracyvscorporationobjectivity

17. The Semantic Web?
No, one ontologyfor all: schema.org
Createdby RamanathanGuha(one of the
brainsbehindCYC and RDF)
One generalontology(enactsnew worlds)
for all domains
ranby a handfulof corporation(s)
…

18. Reclaimthe Web, re-de-centralizethe Web: not justa telcoissue
A deeply, democraticand philosophicalone
#webwewant