--- In TaxoCoP@yahoogroups.com, Fran Alexander <franalexander32@...> wrote:
> The Lumino.so project looks very interesting, but I couldn't figure
> out how their approach differs from using ontologies, which they say
> are brittle, complex, go out of date, and are prescriptive.
>
> It looked to me like they use one big general language ontology -
> their ConceptNet. Do you know what makes ConceptNet different from
> other ontologies?

Fran et al.,

I didn't want to put words in their mouths, so I asked, and I got this reply
from the Media Lab's Catherine Havasi, who co-founded the company:

"The key point is the difference between specific and general ontologies -- a
topic area ontology suffers from the brittleness and maintainability problems
and may also need to be built in the first place. For instance, computer and
technology terms evolve rapidly over time and a standard ontological approach
requires human updating. ConceptNet focuses on learning general human knowledge
which doesn't change very quickly, permitting Luminoso to learn new language by
seeing it used, essentially constructing a domain-specific framework from domain
text without human intervention."

If this still sounds interesting but unclear or unconvincing, then I would
advise talking to them. I can give you contact information if you want, I know
Catherine and one of the other partners from the time I was working 5 minutes
away from the Media Lab and went over there every chance I got (that was in
2004-2007).

Claude Baudoin