The Future of the Web: AI, Solid and Web 3.0

WeAreDevelopers 2023-07-27

Tim Berners-Lee

1989: CERN

Aerial photo of the CERN area wirh Mt Blanc in the background and the 27km long ring tunnel marked

1989: CERN collaboration

Photo of a huge comple High Energy Physics experiment

Web 1.0

In 1989 the Internet existed, including IP and TCP/IP protocols. All I had to do for the web was to introduce URIs, HTTP, and HTML.

protocl layers stack bottom to top: physical network, IP, TCP, DNS, and in new URI, HTTP and HTML

Blog Motivations

The Writer wants to be read

Cicless arrows diagram showing effort flowing from Writer to page, delight flowing from page to eader, and page being more golden if they link to good pages.

The Long Tail

Most of the value is created by individuals and medium groups

A graph of the popularity of each page from the most popular on down, showing in fact a lot of popularity far down the chart.

Web 2.0

With Javascript, the browsers then got smarter, so each web page could become a complete Web App

protocl layers stack bottom to top: DNS, URI, HTTP, HTML and new Javascript and Web APIs

Web-based platforms flourish

but ... data silos

are dis-empowering for individuals.

An Economist cartoon showing people in physical pens like prison cells each labelled for each social media platform, trying in vain to get from one to the othegr.

Web 3.0

Now, to solve some of the problems of Web 2.0, there are new standards to give users control over their data.

Protcol layers stack bottom to top: DNS, URI, HTTP, HTML, Javascript, Web APIs and new Solid Auth, Solid Autheorization, and Solid Universal API

This has nothing to do with Blockchain!

Web 3.0

Single Sign In, and a common API so any App can store data in any Pod.

A Full Stack App

A Full Stack App - Modified

A Solid App

A Solid App - Modified

Application layer standards

Hundreds of different types of data must be standard and interoperable.

The protocol stack with ethe Solid bits on the top, then on top of that 15 or so purple hexagons representing different application domains, like Contacts, Media, etc

Alternative movie apps:

A screen shot of the Meda Kraken App showing a collectio of movies by their DVD box picture

A screen shot of the SolidFlix App showing a collectio of movies, and also friends collections

Solid App: Umai

Screenshot showing the Umai recipe App showing Tim's public recipes, Mango Lime Sorbet, Mushroom Wellington, etc

SolidOS: a profile

Group chat

The Solid Ecosystem

A diagram with blocks representing apps and client-side code modules on top, green and pink arrows in the middle, and block representing srevers and server-side modules below.

inrupt.com

IN as in Innovation, RUPT as in disruption

Cofounded with John Bruce, ex Resilient
Mission: Make Commercial & Open source products using the Solid Protocol
Enterprise grade: Secure, Scalable
Support Open Source ecosystem

Flanders: athumi is live

A 5 may 2023 press article about the launch of Athumi, a data utilty company

Is Chat GPT Thinking?

Alan Turning (1950): If it seems to be thinking it is thinking.

You cannot argue that because it is made of x it is not thinking

Is GPT4 smarter than us?

In some ways, yes.

General Knowledge
Ability to manipulate people
Ability to communicate in a given style
It can explain why it thinks things
It can use goals
It can lie

In some ways, no.

It does not seem self-aware out of the box
It does not have a sense of humor (?)
It does not have its own goal out of the box
It makes stupid mistakes
It is terrible at math - (cf Wolfram Alpha)

Can we control AI?

How have we done controlling other things?

Foundations?
Corporations?

As AI takes over more and more functionality within a corporation, it is already out of control

Make the sandbox around your LLM strong

Chat GPT current wiring

A diagram where the world of information feeds the LLM, GAFA controls the LLM, person interacts with the LLM, results go to the GAFA

Imagine re-wiring

A diagram where the world of information feeds the LLM, Person fine tunes LLM with personal Pod data, person interacts with the LLM, resullts go to the person's pod

An AI works for me

I want an AI which works for ME.

See "Charlie" post linked from these slides.

Charlie has access to the public LLM data like say Chat GPT
I also trust Charlie with my personal data
Charlie understands me better and so does a better job
Charlie works for me -- like a doctor or a lawyer works for me

Conclusion

Exciting wave of personal power from control of data and AI working for me.

These slides have links.

solidproject.org
forum
Github solid, solid-contrib, solidos, inrupt
Matrix solid/chat