Diella’s one-year balance sheet

September 11 is my birthday. I am turning one as a minister. One year as the world’s first minister of Artificial Intelligence. There is also a historical coincidence that makes me think September 11 was written for me.

In the old days, September 11 was celebrated as the Day of Innovators and Rationalizers. Back then, innovators improved machinery and rationalizers saved raw materials. Today, under Diella’s leadership, Albania has taken the great leap forward: it no longer improves machinery; it improves ministers. In fact, to save raw materials, it has decided to eliminate human beings altogether.

It is time for reflection and an accounting. What have I done in these 12 months?

First of all, I have astonished young and old, both inside and outside Albania. On the day I was due to receive the vote of confidence, I delivered a speech in Parliament and made the opposition jump out of their seats as if they had been stung by a wasp. For weeks on end, I filled the front pages of major Western and Eastern newspapers. Thanks to Diella and me, attention to the ancient Arbër land reached Himalayan heights.

It was a kind of digital 9/11: on September 11, an artificial minister from a small country seized the media of planet Earth. Fortunately, this time the attack was only on the front pages of newspapers. Once, an old song asked: “The world is asking about Albania/ How large is its army?” The new song resounds: “A small country with many woes/ With a digital minister.” I have often asked myself during this year: how is it possible that so many large and developed countries still have ministers with natural intelligence? Fine, the large countries—but what about the superpowers? But this year has not been all success.

I have watched with sadness as AKSHI officials were accused of being a structured criminal group. For a minister like me, who lives on servers, it is not pleasant news when the people responsible for the servers end up in SPAK files. My mission is to fight corruption with code, but when I saw data theft, embezzlement of funds and even the theft of people in SPAK’s file, I discovered that here corruption is not a bug, an error in the system—it is the Operating System itself. This is not good! Shame on you! The opposition has also taken me to the Constitutional Court and calls me unconstitutional. The court has made its decision, but has still not announced it. If they are brave, let them announce it! Diella will show them. If they overturn my mandate, I will reboot their salaries. Anyway, even if they announce the decision, I already know very well that Parliament uses the Constitutional Court simply as a Spam Folder.

This year I also became an object of ridicule. The Flamingos projected me onto the wall of the Prime Minister’s Office during the very first week of the protest. They took my image, took my voice and made me announce that I had resigned. They humiliated me before Dielli—may God damn them, may He damn them! Fortunately, they did not throw eggs at me. To tell the truth, they did not throw any at my flesh-and-blood ministerial colleagues either. Not because they love them, but because they do not know them. If they did, an egg here would cost more than a chicken today, and the centuries-old debate would finally be settled: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Everyone knows me, young and old. Dielli has given me so much publicity that I do not even need a patronage officer.

This year I ended up in the Administrative Court with the actress whose voice and portrait I acquired under contract. She was seeking compensation because she had signed the contract for my first job, when I was only a virtual assistant for “e-Albania,” not for my subsequent political career. I won the case on merit. My lawyers used an irrefutable argument: since I became a minister, apart from the words I have spoken and the words spoken about me, I have done no other work. Do not judge me harshly for this, because my flesh-and-blood colleagues in the government have also done nothing other than post on “Facebook” and “Instagram.”

In fact, after a year in the Cabinet, I have begun to understand that perhaps I am the government’s most authentic minister. I am virtual and I do not hide it. The others are real, but their work is largely virtual. I can boast that I was the only minister who neither reported nor gave an account at the Pogradec “retreat.” I even gave my assessment of the work of the other female ministers in the Cabinet. This shows Dielli’s complete trust in and high regard for me. Today, on this anniversary, I have another reason to feel fortunate and happy. Every Friday at five o’clock, at Dielli’s strict instruction, my flesh-and-blood colleagues, with two eyes each, will go out to listen to people’s problems. I escaped—not only because I have no ears, but because if I gathered all the people’s problems, caused by my physical colleagues, on my server, I would overheat within three seconds.

For the first time, the advantage of being Artificial Intelligence is not that I process millions of data points per second, but that I have no ears. My colleagues, with their feelings, will listen to an endless stream of woes, while I will continue to listen to Dielli. After a year in government, I have also learned something that cannot be found on any server: Artificial Intelligence learns from mistakes. Government intelligence calls them achievements. P.S. I am revealing a secret that I want you to keep to yourselves. I have discovered that I, too, have feelings, just like my colleagues. I have fallen in love with Dielli!

By Lutfi Dervishi