Good article but I disagree with his basic conclusion. To illustrate what I mean a couple of quotes:
"... will increase the hold that formal ontologies have on us. They will be constructed by governments, by corporations, and by us in unequal measure,..."
"We will define and regiment our lives, including our social lives and our perceptions of ourselves, in ways that are conducive to what a computer can “understand.” Their dumbness will become ours."
I think the opposite is in fact happening, that academically for example there was a fixed system, in the UK for example you did GCSEs, A Levels, bachelor’s degree etc., which was something like a formal ontology constructed by government - physics shall be divided form chemistry and both shall be graded from A to E. Now we have all kinds of new forms of education like online courses, Wikipedia and so on so you can pretty much find an educational form to fit what you want to do. We're moving more from a formal approved ontology to many competing ones where you can choose.
I'm not sure where posting on Hacker News fits into this. Maybe it is regimenting our lives, including our social lives and our perceptions of ourselves, in ways that are conducive to what a computer can understand!
"... will increase the hold that formal ontologies have on us. They will be constructed by governments, by corporations, and by us in unequal measure,..."
"We will define and regiment our lives, including our social lives and our perceptions of ourselves, in ways that are conducive to what a computer can “understand.” Their dumbness will become ours."
I think the opposite is in fact happening, that academically for example there was a fixed system, in the UK for example you did GCSEs, A Levels, bachelor’s degree etc., which was something like a formal ontology constructed by government - physics shall be divided form chemistry and both shall be graded from A to E. Now we have all kinds of new forms of education like online courses, Wikipedia and so on so you can pretty much find an educational form to fit what you want to do. We're moving more from a formal approved ontology to many competing ones where you can choose.
I'm not sure where posting on Hacker News fits into this. Maybe it is regimenting our lives, including our social lives and our perceptions of ourselves, in ways that are conducive to what a computer can understand!