Interoperability and the Need for Intelligent Software

Jens Pohl, California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo

Abstract

In my introduction to this year’s conference I will address six questions that I believe come to the core of our conference theme of interoperability. Do we human beings resist change? Is it in fact a human problem and not a technical problem that we are dealing with? Can non-human intelligence exist? Do we even have a need for intelligent software? How did software, particularly intelligent software (i.e., if we accept that there is such a thing) evolve over the past several decades, and what is all this talk about a Semantic Web environment? And, finally, what does the future hold in the next five to ten years?