Will The Semantic Web Have a Gender?

Published: August 7, 2008, 1:25 am

One academic warns that it might and says we need to pay attention to it. As machines learn to understand what the web means, what perspective will they understand it from? Who is teaching them? "Objective" descriptions of the world and the relationships in it can cause real problems, particularly for people with little power in those relationships. How will the emerging Semantic Web understand relationships and what will that mean for us as human users? Austrian researcher Corinna Bath argues that there is a real risk that the semantic web of the future will be built with the perspectives and assumptions of male computer scientists baked in unconsciously - at the expense of everyone else. Background Corinna Bath is currently research fellow at the "Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society" in Graz, Austria. She's now working on engaging the several decades old study of gender and technology with the emerging world of the semantic web...

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