Under the terms of the Maastricht treaty, the European Union will have incorporated a European system of central banks (SEBC) that will be directed by the European Central Bank (ECB) no later than January 1, 1999. Driving the political global monetary, guiding the exchange reserves, controlling the banking system in all of Europe, putting in place and guiding the European Currency Unit, directing the treasuries and accomplishing global economic studies: these are among the principal missions of the ECB. In this perspective was created the European monetary institute in 1993 that prefigures the ECB, and of which one of the jobs is to prepare for the transfers of power between the different central national banks and the ECB.
How are the information systems of these central national banks going to prepare the installment of the ECB? The question is especially complex because uncertainties, politics, economics, strategies, and organizations have a role in the scenarios and form of this installment. It is part of the goal to help the heads of the central banks, of the IME and of the future ECB that have and will have to bring good to this job, that the Center of Artificial Intelligence of the direction of the organization and developments of the European Monetary Institute is engaged in a reflection about the use of the simulation tools that rest on the technology of artificial intelligence. For C Ottoli, head of this center, in such a context, the advantages of these technologies are evident.
The basic underlying idea, he explains, is that the complexity of the needs evolves faster than the knowledge of the best experts. Rather than returning to the classic computer science approach that analyses the needs, defines the entrances and exits, deducts the treatments and modules and following these treatments, it is more effective, as artificial intelligence does, to interest ourselves in the manner in which this expert represents the complex system in which he intervenes and in the way in which he directs his activities."
MindSuite tool, is a development platform comprised of Smart Agents and a certain number of other AI technologies (neural networks, genetic algorithms, constraint programming, case based reasoning etc.). Used mostly by the military and large companies to construct models of simulation, MindSuite presents the advantage of not having to describe how everything functions. "To simplify, says C. Ottoli, it is sufficient to say that there is a tank evolving in a certain landscape, that this tank has a certain number of characteristics and objectives and that it communicates with other tanks. You define a global strategy, leave it be and you see how the system evolves. In object language or with a classic program, you must describe everything. This tool has simplified the programming and has let us concentrate on the conception of our system." In comparison to object languages, says C Ottoli, MindSuite has a much more extended strength, they permit the guidance of autonomous entities, they are themselves their own systems of reasoning, they can have their own strategies and communicate with other actors."
The system , officially baptized Europia, also makes it possible to describe the ECB with its missions and all of the central banks of the European union. The description embraces the structure of activities of the establishment, with its seventeen trades (for example, bill fabrication), their sub-professions (for example, the fabrication of inks, or that of papers) and their missions. These descriptions are mixed with those of different types of systems and of sub-systems of information, which are eventually linked with these activities.
The ambition of the promoters of C. Ottoli team is to furnish simulation tools that will permit European monetary authorities to visualize the consequences of different scenarios amongst which they have to choose.
Express news
1994
