IEML, the Information Economy MetaLanguage, is a free and open-source artificial language with computable semantics. It is the result of 20 years of research, mainly at the Canada Research Chair in Collective Intelligence at the University of Ottawa.
The main purposes of IEML are (1) to provide a semantic metadata system on the Internet and (2) to build a bridge among classifications, ontologies, languages, and jargons that fragment digital memory.
FOR WHOM IS IT INTENDED?
IEML is a multidisciplinary project at the confluence of AI, data science, linguistics, digital humanities, and philosophy. Because the metalanguage IEML has computable semantics it will be of interest to people working in the fields of artificial intelligence, business intelligence, and data science. This metalanguage proposes new uses and theory of metadata also relevant to researchers in the fields of heritage conservation (libraries, museums), digital humanities, and data journalism. Finally, since IEML increases collective intelligence, it will be of interest to practitioners in knowledge management, collaborative learning, and digital communications.
In this day and age, semantic interoperability among databases, languages, disciplines, etc. is a problem for a lot of professionals and researchers in the above-mentioned fields. In addition, after several years of deep learning frenzy, there is a renewed interest in symbolic AI (or at least in a synthesis between statistic and symbolic AI), and IEML is a powerful symbolic tool.
UNIQUE FEATURES
IEML has the same expressive power as a natural language; but it is also a regular language whose syntax and semantics can be computed. In other words, IEML algorithms automatically determine semantic relationships between any two grammatical units of the metalanguage (i.e. between morphemes, words, simple sentences, complex sentences, texts). And IEML is translatable into any natural language.
As of today, there is no existing language which simultaneously has the following properties:
1. IEML is a philological language (according to Louis Helmsley’s definition), meaning that it has the same power of expression and translation as any natural language.
2. It is a regular language in the Chomskyan sense, its syntax being computable.
3. Its semantics can be computed, from the tiniest element being the morpheme, to the largest level being the text.
These three properties combined make IEML a powerful tool to ensure semantic interoperability, organize information, and model knowledge in a flexible way in the age of the Internet of things, big data, artificial intelligence, and digital humanities.
From a mathematical point of view, IEML is a “topos,” i. e. an algebra (a regular language) in relation of morphism, with a topology of semantic relationships.
COMPETITION
As of today, IEML has no equivalent. However, let’s discuss two somewhat similar projects – one technical (the Semantic Web) and one linguistic (Lojban).
IEML and the Semantic Web
In terms of long-term vision, IEML’s main competitor is the WWW Consortium’s “Semantic Web,” including the RDF and OWL standards. The Semantic Web project was formulated at the end of the 20th century and is based on the availability of inference engines and ontologies (rule-based systems representing domain knowledge) that were developed at the time as the “expert systems” in the 1970s and 1980s. However, at the time not all computers were interconnected and the problem of semantic interoperability was not as acute as it is today. Yes, the Semantic Web makes it possible to compute semantic relationships and make logical inferences, but only within an ontology. There are thousands of different existing ontologies and translations between ontologies must be done “by hand.”
The Semantic Web and IEML have some features in common. In particular, both aim to “represent knowledge” for automatic reasoning. But they are two different endeavors: the Semantic Web is a set of standards for data import/export XML (Extensible Markup Language) and the description of logical relations between data RDF (Resource Description Framework), OWL (Ontology Web Language). None of these standards have – like IEML does – the properties of a philological language. The Semantic Web standards have been designed for computing the truth of propositions in whatever natural language they have been expressed in, while IEML computes the semantic relations between any IEML morphemes, words, sentences and texts (and IEML may be automatically translated in natural languages). IEML and OWL operate on very different levels but are not mutually exclusive: you can write IEML texts in XML, RDF, or in OWL files.
During its two decades in existence, the Semantic Web has achieved a lot of useful applications. But it has also shown that problems in semantic computing and interoperability can’t be solved by logic and classifications alone. IEML, being both a formal and a philological language, computes, generates, and recognizes automatically an infinity of concepts and their semantic relations. In short, IEML is not a universal ontology, it is a language with computable semantics that can express any ontology.
The World Wide Web Consortium project represents semantic relationships by means of logical formalism and its nodes are arbitrary sequences of characters (like URLs). In contrast, IEML represents semantic relationships through linguistic formalism with nodes (USLs, uniform semantic locators) that are expressions of a single regular language. Inherent to IEML expressions, semantic relationships are represented here in a much more parsimonious way.
Finally, for the Semantic Web, URLs are the last layer of (physical) addressing of data and a conceptual addressing system is impossible or even reprehensible. In contrast, IEML proposes in the long term a universal addressing system for concepts on the Internet: USLs (uniform semantic locators).
IEML and Lojban
People who are interested in artificial languages always mention Lobjan as a possible competitor to IEML because it has a logical and regular grammar.
Lojban’s grammar is inspired by pre-existing logical formalisms and not by an original, flexible, effective, and general abstract algebra like IEML.
The meaning of Lojban words is solely defined by a correspondence with natural languages and not by a coincidence of signifier (syntax) and signified (semantic) paradigms as found in IEML. Moreover, in Lojban the level of morphemes does not meet the standards of a regular language. In contrast, IEML semantics are entirely generative. In short, IEML is the only artificial language that – once given its semantic primitives – defines its semantics by means of its syntax.
Finally, Lojban is made to be spoken while IEML is designed from the beginning as a scientific writing to serve as a semantic metadata system capable of indexing all aspects of human activity, that can be manipulated and “understood” by computers and to solve the problem of semantic interoperability.
PHILOSOPHICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
The human species can be defined by its special ability to manipulate symbols. Each great augmentation in this ability has brought enormous economic, social, political, religious, epistemological, educational (and so on) changes.
There have been only four of these big changes. The first one is related to the invention of writing, when symbols became permanent and reified. The second one corresponds to the invention of the alphabet, Indian numerals and other small groups of symbols able to represent “almost everything” by their combination. The third one is the invention of the printing press and the subsequent invention of electronic mass media. In this case, the symbols were reproduced and transmitted by industrial machines. We are currently at the beginning of a fourth big anthropological change because the symbols can now be transformed by massively distributed automata in the digital realm. We still do not have invented the symbolic systems and cultural institutions fitting the new algorithmic medium. So my research in the past 20 years has been devoted to the invention of a symbolic system able to exploit the computational power, the capacity of memory and the ubiquity of the Internet.
This is the main motivation behind my work on IEML: I took up the challenge of inventing a symbolic system that makes the most of the new digital environment to serve human cognitive augmentation better.
Follow me and IEML on Twitter
For scientific publications, reports and other documents, look here.
Prof. Pierre Lévy, PhD., University of Montreal
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Pierre Lévy excellent! There are numerous people who do not speak english or another foreign language. It will be wonderful and certainly empower collective intelligence of humanity to overcome the language barriers when we can already have tools, apps ..
I take wonder if it’s just an impression, or if you use some strategy smarter in your writing? When I read – in its pages, the google translator seems more effective, the translation is better, almost no errors.
Thank you! Success always! hugs!
Original message:
Excelente Pierre Lévy! Tem inúmeras pessoas que não dominam o inglês ou outra língua estrangeira. Será maravilhoso e certamente potencializará a inteligência coletiva da humanidade a superação dos entraves linguísticos, quando já pudermos contar com ferramentas, apps..
Aproveito indagar se é apenas uma impressão, ou se usa alguma estratégia mais inteligente, na sua escrita? Quando o leio – em suas páginas, o google tradutor parece mais efetivo, a tradução é melhor, quase sem erros.
Obrigada! Sucesso sempre! abraços!
Mensagem original:
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Thank you Paula 🙂
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[…] My Research in a Nutshell […]
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[…] Ce projet culturel et cognitif s’appuie sur un dispositif techno-symbolique de mon invention : IEML. Ce métalangage algorithmique s’auto-traduit dans toutes les langues et fournit aux sciences […]
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Peut-on déjà commencer à référencer des concepts IEML directement en HTML, avec RDF-a lite ? Et est-ce qu’il existe une “traduction” des termes schema.org en concepts IEML ?
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Bonjour Paul,
Tout cela sera possible dans le futur, mais pour le moment il n’y a pas d’outils pratiques. La recherche est encore au stade fondamental. Patience…
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Is a wonderfull project, tha implies a powerfull theorys that cautivated me. I an anxiety for view any visualization of the aplication for concretes knowledge-sets, like a kind of conceptual map of the french philosophy of the firsth-middle XX century. Where i can view ieml aplications research for that?
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There is currently no practical applications. The research is still at the fundamental stage. Patience!
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[…] My Research in a Nutshell […]
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Bonjour Monsieur Pierre
I am formally requesting your collaboration to a project where we are developing an e-democracy tool we named Airesis. The research field where we need your wisdom is in the methodology for conceptual synthesis in proposals for consensual decision making of which we have already successfully set a good foundation. Our process can be seen as an evolutionary platform for ideas. Unfortunately our system, my personal view, still give too much weight to individualism. We would like, and will be an honor, to have you in our team and I hope will not remain a dream. Humbly remain yours.
Regards
Jacopo
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Bonjour Jacopo,
Your project is very interesting, but I am too busy with my own research project to accept your invitation.
Nevertheless, keep me posted.
Kinds regards
Pierre L.
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Bonjour Pierre
Thank you for your attention, I am very pleased and I promise that if we going forward you will be informed.
What about IEMLize the output of the Airesis platform? Somewhere, somehow will be necessary to put those tags to prepare the ground for the future that is coming?
Would love to submit to your attention our Concept Note. In the mean time I submitted the grammar to our semantic expert programmer and our head developer.
We need you!
Regards
Jacopo
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[…] See on pierrelevyblog.com […]
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[…] My Research in a Nutshell […]
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Bonjour M. Lévy,
Dans votre livre ‘The Semantic Sphere’, vous faites référence à un dictionnaire STAR déjà en existence, qui ne contiennent en ce moment que 3000 termes; est-ce que c’est possible de trouver ce dictionnaire sur internet, ou est-il encore en stade de développement?
Merci.
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Il y aura une version en ligne début 2015!
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C’est encore difficile à naviguer (le logiciel est conçu pour l’édition du dictionnaire) mais voilà déjà quelque chose: http://dictionary.ieml.io/#/
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[…] My Research in a Nutshell […]
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[…] Otro interesante punto es la ruptura de la rígida categorización del mundo durante los cinco siglos gutenbergianos. Desde los índices de cada obra científica, el mundo se intentaba dividir y catalogar de un modo sistemático, pero en esta nueva era de la neo-oralidad, las disciplinas, los saberes y la información transgreden continuamente cualquier muro que se intente levantar entre las materias del conocimiento. El ingente volumen de datos y teorías que circulan, se mezclan, se interfieren y se superponen hasta tal punto – y sobre todo a tal velocidad – que cualquier intento de categorización resulta cada vez más difícil e ineficaz. Si antes eran las élites económicas o intelectuales las controladoras del conocimiento, en el periodo post-parentético, la democratización que nos han ofrecido las nuevas tecnologías, permiten que la cultura y la información pueda ser generada y consumida por segmentos de población mucho más amplios. De esta colaboración, del concurso de tal cantidad de agentes, ha surgido la «inteligencia colectiva» a la que se refiere Pierre Lévy. […]
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[…] Otro interesante punto es la ruptura de la rígida categorización del mundo durante los cinco siglos gutenbergianos. Desde los índices de cada obra científica, el mundo se intentaba dividir y catalogar de un modo sistemático, pero en esta nueva era de la neo-oralidad, las disciplinas, los saberes y la información transgreden continuamente cualquier muro que se intente levantar entre las materias del conocimiento. El ingente volumen de datos y teorías que circulan, se mezclan, se interfieren y se superponen hasta tal punto – y sobre todo a tal velocidad – que cualquier intento de categorización resulta cada vez más difícil e ineficaz. Si antes eran las élites económicas o intelectuales las controladoras del conocimiento, en el periodo post-parentético, la democratización que nos han ofrecido las nuevas tecnologías, permiten que la cultura y la información pueda ser generada y consumida por segmentos de población mucho más amplios. De esta colaboración, del concurso de tal cantidad de agentes, ha surgido la «inteligencia colectiva» a la que se refiere Pierre Lévy. […]
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I am a biologic teacher from Uruguay . I am sure colective intelligence exist. When you are with the teenagers, in class , you can feel that is true. Nevertheless ,I have never thought this can be possible through the machine.
Thank you. I want to know more about this.
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To know more explore the blog and look at this:
https://pierrelevyblog.com/about/free-online/
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Estimado, Pierre, me gusto su hipótesis, use el traductor al español, clara y precisas sus ideas. Me gustaria saber más sobre su teoria, disculpe mi atrevimiento, no soy filosofa, ni linguista, soy una docente en arte y me interesa poder cocnocer y seguir su trabajo y contactarme con usted. Vivo en una provincia del interior de Argentina.
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[…] Ottawa, Canada pierrelevyblog.com/my-research-in… […]
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[…] information and knowledge. “No one knows everything, everyone knows something,” Pierre Levy says about knowledge communities. This collective intelligence is what holds these communities […]
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Respected teacher:
I am a national program leader sociology at UNAD of Colombia and will make the III World Congress of Distance Education, between 21 and 23 October 2016.
I led the issue of collective intelligence in this university and we are very interested in being able to count on your presence at this event.
My e-mail is luise.wilches@unad.edu.co or leduardow@hotmail.com
I would like, if possible, have any information to contact you to inform you of the event and know their possibilities and conditions.
Sincerely
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[…] K. Pierre Lévy T: @plevy Blog: https://pierrelevyblog.com/my-research-in-a-nutshell/ […]
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ムダ毛の量が多くて悩みを持つ人は、すぐにでも体質改善を始めていきましょう。大豆等に内包されているイソフラボンは女性ホルモンに近いので、毛が薄くなります。納豆や豆腐、豆乳を積極的にとって、ムダ毛が生えにくい体質を目標に頑張っていきましょう。
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Dear Pierre, something out of theme. We are doing project about your book Cyberculture at school. There is a problem, because I can’t find your biography. There is not much information about your life. Could you help me, please with this?
Your sincerely,
Jaroslava,CZ
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Are you not happy with Wikipedia? (try the page in português: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_L%C3%A9vy ).
I have written kind of an intellectual biography at the beginning of The Semantic Sphere, p. 5-26
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wtt6jpp1hc88x98/00-0-0-semantic-sphere-1-1.pdf?dl=0
Do you have a specific question?
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Bonjour Docteur Professeur Pierre Lévy. Tout d’abord vous remercier pour le temps que vous deviez être capable de lire ce que je dis. Répondre par nom Roberto Caetano Alfredo, les étudiants de cours de philosophie de l’Université Eduardo Mondlane, en particulier en Afrique du Sud, au Mozambique, qui se réfère à dire que je suis africaine. Pendant longtemps, je lis les livres et les commentaires du professeur Pierre lévy, et je suis évidemment très passionné d’étendre mes études ou mi consacrer mon temps à approfondir l’excellent domaine du savoir qui a à voir avec les grands concepts de la technologie: Intelligence artificielle; l’intelligence collective; Cyberculture.
Comme je l’ai lu des livres et des commentaires assez de Theodor Nelson, Manuel castelus, michael serro, entre autres philosophes, je trouve que je sociologues qu’il est en fait un filosoficidade de notre génération. Je vous serais reconnaissant si par hasard mi que la possibilité de tenir le Maître de votre pays préféré, ce qui ne va pas sortir de mon esprit, tout comme l’effort, depuis la longue date.
Le professeur Pierre lévy est que suscite mi plus grand intérêt pour l’étude de la philosophie de l’information, hypermédia, domaines de connaissance très intéressant d’aujourd’hui ….
Cher Docteur Professeur Pierre lévy, je pense à mon avis que « la technologie ne fonctionne que lorsque cela ne met pas en danger la vie humaine, à l’opposé de cette technologie de la réalité perd sa valeur noble » …. Reconnaissants pour le Professeur Pierre Levy attention, vont bien et que Dieu soit avec vous.
Par: Roberto Caetano Alfredo. Email ou par courriel: Robertocaetanoalfredo@gmail.com
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[…] Sobre todo he aprendido que tengo que seguir formándome y mejorar mis capacidades puesto que siempre se descubre personas de las que aprender y que te pueden enseñar, tanto en el uso de herramientas como de metodologías o procesos que pueden implementar mi experiencia como docente. Esto hace que debamos ahondar tanto en la potenciación de la enseñanza en línea como en la necesidad de sacar el máximo partido a las herramientas de la web 2.0, y así poder evolucionar en esta sociedad del conocimiento de la que formamos parte y que mejora con la inteligencia colectiva enunciada por el pensador tunecino Pierre Lévy. […]
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[…] IEML in a nutshell […]
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Bonjour Pierre. Lorsque les outils d’IEML seront prêts, comment s’y prendra t-on pour exprimer le sens d’un terme, voire d’un énoncé ? Faudra-t-il tout ré-exprimer en IEML ? Est-ce qu’il y aura une traduction automatique de langue naturelle vers IEML ? Sinon, est-ce qu’il s’agira d’un markup (avec des balises) comme HTML ou XML ? Merci.
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Cher Alain, les réponses sont dans la dernière version du livre blanc dynamique: https://www.dropbox.com/s/875vsj0atbcts43/0-00-IEML-Manifesto-2019-fr.pdf?dl=0
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[…] Esse sistema de codificação semântica foi batizado a IEML (Information Economy Meta Language em inglês ou metalinguagem da economia da informação em…. […]
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