Chapter 1. Building applications for the intelligent web
This chapter covers
- Recognizing intelligence on the web
- Types of intelligent algorithms
- Evaluating intelligent algorithms
The intelligent web means different things to different people. To some it represents the evolution of the web into a more responsive and useful entity that can learn from and react to its users. To others it represents the inclusion of the web into many more aspects of our lives. To me, far from being the first iteration of Skynet, in which computers take over in a dystopian future, the intelligent web is about designing and implementing more naturally responsive applications that make our online experiences better in some quantifiable way. There’s a good chance that every reader has encountered machine intelligence on many separate occasions, and this chapter will highlight some examples so that you’ll be better equipped to recognize these in the future. This will, in turn, help you understand what’s really happening under the hood when you interact with intelligent applications again.