I hate the phrase Web 3.0. I’ve never really liked the phrase Web 2.0 either, but I didn’t notice that I didn’t like it until after it had become used in almost every conversation I had with anyone about what they were working on. As I started making new investments in companies that tried to deal with the TAR problem (such as Me.dium, Lijit, Collective Intellect, and HiveLive), I realized I wanted a name for this. I came up with the lame name “dynamics of information” as a placeholder.
I’ve been searching for a new name for this and my partner Ryan McIntyre came up with the phrase “Intelligence Amplification” which I love. It’s especially sweet if you catch the mildly ironic reference to “Artificial Intelligence.” While I still haven’t locked down this label as final for this theme of investing, articles such as “Applying Semantic Web Ideals” from the weblog The Intelligent Enterprise – in addition to highlighting my friend Nick Bradbury as having a major clue around this stuff – reinforce the chocolately goodness of this name in my non-silicon based mind.
Till all the bugs are fixed, a better choice would be “Stupidity subdued”….Just as some of the Artificial Intelligence apps were found to be “Naturally Stupid” till they were either debugged or completely abandoned.
Comment by Krishna — November 28, 2006 @ 9:30 am
Intelligence Amplification is a great term. Tim O’Reilly used it in his ETech keynote in March 06. I think it captures a current trend well.
Comment by You Mon Tsang — November 28, 2006 @ 11:00 am
In other word you replace the semantic web by the user semantic. I love the idea that the shortest way is human computation.
I am just starting to use lijiit and my google answer page starts to be really complicated to read with all the pop ups and badges. But that’s good amplification.
I adopt the term
Thanks
Comment by leafar — November 28, 2006 @ 5:22 pm
My guess is Web 3.0 will stick – as bad as it is.
Comment by David Henderson — November 28, 2006 @ 6:48 pm
Intelligence Amplification just likely too wordy to really catch on. Ajax, Web 2.0 — they are said so often partly because they are so easy to say.
If it makes you feel better, most labels suck. Are people who play Runescape for 30 hours a week, or log into Pogo.com every single day to play — a “casual gamer” ??
Comment by Nabeel Hyatt — November 28, 2006 @ 8:25 pm
The IA label has its good and bad points – for one thing, basically all computing is intelligence amplification, so this doesn’t really capture what’s new about it. It seems that what’s new about it is the social/network aspect, and that there is an emergent synthesis that results from organizing independent behavior.
I think Digital Cortex is a terrible name, since I’m working on the real thing and that’s just an analogy.
How about “Hive Mind”?
Comment by Dave Jilk — November 29, 2006 @ 8:57 am
I like the term Web 3.0 but I think it should describe something bigger than just the semantic web and intelligence amplification. There is a very definite break between The Web of the 90’s and Web 2.0. The break was provided by a recession.
It will probably take another recession to clear out the bad ideas and make room for what is next. We have the ability to do so much more than we are currently doing on many different fronts. We just need to hit the reset button first.
The main thing is not to confuse the full version 3 of the Web with a few features that we are currently working on.
Comment by Luke Gedeon — December 1, 2006 @ 8:17 am
Some great thoughts! “Intelligence Amplification” sounds good to me, what about “Contextual Information Awareness”? That’s my pet name for the subject.
Comment by Elliot Turner — December 1, 2006 @ 9:37 am
Intelligence Amplification is NOT getting people to help the computer with what it can’t do itself. This is more like Intelligence Exploitation. Intelligence Amplification is more like using machines to enhance human capabilities. Artificial Intelligence is machines that can think like humans, independently of them. Just wanted to make sure everyone got their terms straight. Just look at the word, and think about it.
Comment by nick rafter — April 4, 2007 @ 1:55 am
ar http://www.feng-gui.com we serve a Web 3.0 service of a Digital Cortex that Finds out how people View your website or image and which areas are getting most of the attention.
Comment by feng-gui — April 23, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
Your business partner didn't come up with the term "Intelligence Amplifier" unless his name is Ross Ashby and he wrote "Design for an Intelligence Amplifier" back in the 1950s.
Comment by Ted — August 31, 2009 @ 8:40 am