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Internet-scale knowledge systems are clearly useful. But are they intelligent?

Recall Newell’s criteria for intelligent systems. Most web sites exhibit at least a few of these characteristics. Moreover, each of them can be found somewhere on the Web. Newell, however, was adamant that all characteristics must simultaneously be exhibited.

A few mega-sites, such as Amazon, come close to meeting Newell’s condition. Amazon has adaptive goal-oriented behavior – it tries to sell you books; it certainly learns from experience - what to recommend. Someone has even built a speech interface using their published APIs. And Amazon has a modicum of self-awareness - the ability to recognize when servers go down and take corrective action. So is Amazon intelligent?

Begging that question, the real issue is whether a Web of distributed knowledge services, each of which may satisfy at most a few of the criteria, can collectively achieve true intelligence. The jury is still out. However, I’m sanguine the answer will be yes. And because they at least give people the information they need to solve problems and make decisions, such systems will surely boost the collective intelligence of man and machine.