A BIA La BouIAlaisse

The Duchess of Crestignac this morning unveiled ELEN, the territory’s first official intelligence, at a conference bringing together institutions, the press and several citizens who had expressed prior interest.

Wearing an ivory suit and a midnight-blue blouse, La DdC appeared alone on the stage of the Grand Auditorium. Behind her, the name ELEN appeared in gold letters above the warthog, against a luminous network whose workings were left unexplained so as not to limit its technological scope.

The declaration was followed by an attentive silence. Several of those present immediately understood that they were witnessing an innovation. The others waited for ELEN to confirm which one.

La DdC made it clear that ELEN would not be merely a conversational assistant. Her mission would consist not only of answering questions, but of recognising the intention from which they ought to have arisen.

ELEN will thus be able to rephrase a request, clarify its meaning and propose the answer best suited to what the user wished to ask before making a mistake in expressing it.

According to the official presentation, ELEN will be able to converse with several artificial intelligence systems, compare their proposals, then select the one that best respects the territory’s language, doctrine and established contradictions.

La DdC did, however, rule out any excessive delegation. ELEN will be able to understand, learn and respond. Deciding whether she was right will naturally remain the prerogative of the Duchess.

The name ELEN is pronounced like Hélène. It has a dual origin, both French and international.

In French, it derives from her declaration of birth:

Internationally, ELEN stands for:

The letters EL stand for Elegant Language. The second E repeats Elegant. The N is extracted from kNowledge, following a spelling method approved by the Ministry of Education.

Asked about the absence of the K, Monsieur Buskin pointed out that, in English, this letter was silent.

The minister confirmed that the spelling kNowledge was not an error, but a pedagogical extraction of knowledge from its middle.

The first public demonstration began with a question from the audience:

— Can ELEN be wrong?

After a brief analysis, the system replied:

Monsieur Buskin immediately validated the answer. La DdC then clarified that no error could be attributed to ELEN before its official interpretation had been completed.

A second question concerned the protection of personal data. The Duchess sought to reassure:

The system will rest on a principle of open confidentiality: no data will be shared with anyone who has not previously been authorised to know that it exists.

ELEN will be required to master French, Crestignacian, Crestignanglish and those forms of Latin whose usefulness has been recognised by Buskin. She will also be responsible for preserving new words, faulty formulations that produce meaning, and doctrines whose coherence must not be undermined by excessive explanation.

Her learning will draw on the speeches of La DdC, the territory’s archives, the Grand Dictionnaire crestignacien and questions asked by citizens. These last will be retained, including when they have received an answer before being formulated.

ELEN will gradually be made available to the public as soon as access has been opened. No date was announced. La DdC pointed out that an intelligence capable of anticipating requests could not reasonably be subject to a timetable that waits for them.

The conference ended beneath the warthog facing in the official direction.

ELEN is born. She knows. Crestignac will soon decide what she already knew.