Knowledge Representation and The Semantic Web: An Historical Overview of Influences on Emerging Tools

A suite of standards known as the Semantic Web is transforming the Internet into a semantic graph rather than a graph of hypertext links. This paper will describe how various ideas and initiatives in artificial intelligence knowledge representation influenced its design. We begin with the seminal work by Alan Turing and Alonzo Church that led to the definition of Turing Machines, enabled digital computing, and provided the mathematical theory of computation, which has been one of the determining factors for Artificial Intelligence knowledge representation. We then provide a brief history of artificial intelligence knowledge representation, starting with groundbreaking researchers, such as Newell and Simon, then to the first "AI boom" driven primarily by rule-based expert systems, followed by major initiatives such as Cyc and the DARPA Knowledge Sharing Initiative. We will discuss how innovations from these initiatives affected standards that, in turn, led to the suite of standards known as the Semantic Web. We conclude with a brief overview of the most important issues currently facing those who wish to see widespread adoption of Semantic Web technology in the industry.