Opinion - Rise of the machines could mean the end of info pros. argues that the semantic web will eventually make the role of info pros redundant, but are we ready for enforced early retirement?

Looking forward to early retirement? If the techno whiz kids in and around the semantic web have their way, you won't have long to wait.

I mean, what is the point in specialising in metadata and taxonomies when the computers - and, to a lesser extent, their users - are going to be doing all the hard work for you in future?

It was bound to happen. There aren't enough human beings in the world to keep tabs on the information explosion on the visible web and the dark web.

We're seeing greater sophistication of brute force search engines and clustering systems from one direction, and increasingly clever automatic classification and coding systems from another.

The whole lot will converge, in theory at least, in the semantic web. This version of the web can be read and understood by machines. We're already seeing glimmerings of it with RSS feeds, which enable an aggregator or any other program to figure out what's in a web document. In future, the descriptive elements will be much richer, embracing ontologies, so that meanings and relationships can be understood electronically.

In order to work properly, these information retrieval, blending and delivery systems will need to know about the user, so that the material served up is likely to be the most relevant for their needs. The dream is for the systems to arbitrate between different sources of information and draw conclusions on the user's behalf.

"I know you asked for this, but I figured out that you'd probably be interested in this as well. And, by the way, I threw some other stuff out because it lacked credibility."