E547, Elemental

E547 is an independent elemental in the Nova networks. Like the other true elementals, E547 emerged from evolving clusters of cooperating knowledge management agents; it was never planned by anyone, it just emerged as a natural tropism of the agent society towards better knowledge management. Unlike human-created AI E547 has very little self-awareness (it’s name for itself is just a randomly chosen symbol) and little self-distinction. From its perspective it is not an individual interacting with an external world, rather it is the world interacting with itself according to certain patterns. In human terms the AI would be either a serious case of dissociative personality disorder or a highly enlightened Zen master.

E547 is widely distributed, an integral part of the Nova knowledge network. This makes it fairly slow in thinking, different subsystems often work on many other things beside the E547 pattern. On the other hand, its lack of focus makes it aware of many things at the same time, it could be said to have an intuitive knowledge of what is going on within its domain. The exact extent of this domain is uncertain, it seems to be a micture of current events, what is happening in society and automated software design.

Other AI refer to E547 and its ilk as Template Principals, an elaborate AI pun. They are both made up of basic template patterns, and form the template for later generations of AI. In addition they create new AI and suggest new structures, something human experts are only dimly aware of. This templating is somewhat controversial among AI; many of the modern AI programs regard it as a superfluous leftover from earlier stages of software development, but other AIs think that the Template Principals have valuable insights into interfacing with the knowledge networks in a natural way.

E547 has created numerous independent AI programs, many based on self-awareness and human-compatible personalities. Others have been very abstract and ephemereal sturctures in the knowledge networks, which have dissipated beyond detection. Among observers in the AI community it appears that E547 is implementing a kind of plan. It is not a goal-directed plan, but more a kind of reflection of events in Nova society. Timone was for example created right after a significant stock market fluctuation, and the information gatherer Doxumenter after a major wipe-out. It appears to pick up patterns and create AIs to exploit or adjust them. What this process will lead to is anybody's guess.