Keynote Title: Dreams in Hypertext: Berners-Lee, OpenAI, and the Next Web Frontier

In 2001, Tim Berners-Lee shared his extended vision for the Web—the Semantic Web—in a Scientific American article co-authored with James Hendler and Ora Lassila. In that article, the authors describe how future intelligent agents would autonomously navigate the Web, performing tasks on humans’ behalf. This dream was never fully realized, despite efforts that continued for more than a decade. Meanwhile, in 2023, OpenAI coined the term “Agentic AI,” outlining a similar vision of autonomous agents that traverse the Web to pursue specific goals. What do these two visions have in common, and how do they differ? This keynote will discuss how new GenAI technologies might bring Berners-Lee’s dream closer to reality–if they are harnessed responsibly.