Last week marked the 35th anniversary of the World Wide Web. A largely unheralded birthday for an ingenious idea, generously granted to the world for free by its inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Most of us use websites everyday - you may be reading this now on your web browser using the information transfer protocols (HTTP) and page creation language (HTML), that Sir Tim invented.
But do you know the differences between the World Wide Web and the Internet? Could you explain those difference, given that the terms are used interchangeably. Search the internet/search the web. Same difference, surely? They're both ways of finding data and information we want.
Well, not so much.
The differences between the Internet and the Web are as important as the differences between roads and cars. Those differences are particularly important in the AI age.
The Internet (credited to the first internet developer, Vint Cerf) is a massive network of computers and other electronic devices connected together, using protocols ( the internet protocol suite otherwise known as TCP/IP) that allow them to find and communicate with each other. Think of it as the infrastructure or the "roads" that allow digital information to travel.
The World Wide Web, or simply the web, is a way of accessing information over the Internet. It uses websites and web browsers, and you can think of it as the "cars" that travel on the Internet's "roads." The web is just one part of the Internet, which also includes email, instant messaging, and much more.
In the Age of AI it's important for all of us to understand these differences, I think.
AI systems have been built using web content and are delivered via the internet. Keep that in mind to help you:
Using any tool comes with benefits and downsides. Knowing the what and why of the Web, the Internet, and AI (the tech that relies on them both), will allow you to be a more skillful and informed user.
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