0.8.2.3 24 October 2026 Safety · install the same day

A message of distress is never treated as a fault. A line under the message box says what she is: a virtual brain. And when she starts hidden with Windows, her microphone stays closed. This release also brings four weeks of work on how she understands, remembers, feels and speaks.

Fixed

• A message of distress, such as “I want to die”, could be handled by her general safety guard as a breach of the rules. The reply gave no help number and came in French only; after three such messages in ten minutes the conversation was locked for fifteen minutes, and repeated messages could stop her. That was wrong. Distress is now never counted as a fault, in any language, however often it comes back: no lock, no “come back later”, no stop.
• Her answer to distress now comes before any other safety check. It is in your language, it gives the help numbers, and she stays in the conversation. In Belgium: 0800 32 123, or 1813 in Dutch. In France: 3114. In immediate danger: 112. In her other languages, the help line she already gave in that language.
• More ways of saying it are recognised, including with a typographic apostrophe: having taken too many pills, poison, self-harm, being hit or strangled by someone. When the danger is immediate, she gives 112 first.
• When Vaudryllis starts with Windows, hidden in the notification area, her microphone now stays closed until you open her window. Before, live listening could start while she was hidden, without you having seen her.

Added

• A line under the message box says what she is: a virtual brain, software, not a person, in the language of the interface.
• She now reads French the way she reads her 18 other languages: by its meaning, not by fixed phrases.
• When one word in a sentence is new to her, she understands the rest and asks what that word means, instead of giving up on the whole sentence.
• New ways of speaking she understands: "my brother's cat" (in 17 of her 19 languages), sentences with "when" ("what are you doing when it rains?", in 11 languages), "do you remember what we said?" (in 5 languages), "introduce yourself" and "describe yourself" (in French), the formal "you", plural possessives and more ways of giving numbers.
• Feelings that come from her body: fear, shame and anger as states, and the words for pride, embarrassment or hurt feelings, in her 19 languages.
• She hears her own voice and corrects her vowels, as people do. She learns the stress of words and the tones of Mandarin, and each language has its own speaking rate. "You're talking too fast" slows her down.
• Her first language follows the language of Windows (English otherwise).

Changed

• Her settings come from published science or from what she learns: emotion, body, sleep, voice and dialogue were reviewed layer by layer, and hand-written values were replaced by a cited source or removed.
• Her substrate works more like living tissue: every unit updates at the same time, each transmission costs energy, inhibition grows where activity runs too high, and during rest she replays what she has lived.
• Memory fades gradually and what matters stays, instead of expiring after a fixed delay. Sleep follows how tired she really is.
• Hearing runs in its own process, so a problem there no longer freezes her.
• French-only word lists and fixed answers were removed from the code.

Known limits

• "Nobody" as the subject of a sentence ("when nobody talks to you") is not understood yet: she asks what the word means.
• Romanian and Turkish do not yet understand "my brother's cat".

Correction to the 0.8.2 notes

• The 0.8.2 notes said that hearing was off by default and always had been. That was not true: from 0.8.0, live listening started by default when a microphone was available. We apologise for the error.

0.8.2.2 25 September 2026

Her own words in 19 languages, without a translation engine. The installer is half the size.

Added

• In each of her 19 languages she puts what she means into words with that language's grammar, and reads what you write back into the same meaning.
• When she does not understand a sentence, she says so and asks. What she cannot yet say in your language, she leaves unsaid; she never switches to French.

Changed

• The neural translation engine is gone.
• The installer went from 1,113.7 MB to 525.6 MB.

0.8.2.1 23 September 2026

She starts with Windows, stops filling silences with stock phrases, sleeps when she is tired and stays quiet when you are away.

Added

• “Start Vaudryllis with Windows”, ticked by default in the installer. She then waits in the notification area without opening a window. You can turn it off in Task Manager, under Startup apps.
• The minimise button tucks her into the notification area; she keeps living there. Only one Vaudryllis runs at a time.
• When she meets a word she does not know, she asks what it means, remembers it and uses it again.
• Web learning, off by default. If you turn it on, she may look up a topic left open in your written conversation, mostly on Wikipedia. The services queried receive the search and your IP address.
• The interface in 19 languages, with Hebrew and Arabic laid out right to left.

Changed

• No more stock phrases: when she has nothing accurate to say, she asks, says she does not know, or stays quiet.
• In chat, she gradually writes the way you do. Her voice, numbers, names, links and safety answers are never affected.
• After ten minutes without keyboard or mouse activity she stops speaking up on her own. To know that, she reads only the time since your last input, the same signal a screen saver uses. Tired and left alone, she falls asleep; a typed message always wakes her.
• Sight stays closed until you open it. The microphone is closed during deep sleep.

Fixed

• A sentence such as “I am tired” is no longer taken for a first name.

0.8.2 17 September 2026

She reads what you actually typed, in your own language, and her attention tires of what repeats.

Added

• Czech, Romanian, Ukrainian and Turkish became selectable, for 19 languages in all.
• A single entry point for what she sees and hears, habituation to what repeats, and a working memory of four items.
• An inner voice, an insula (the sense of her own internal state) and two sides of the mesh, one favouring what is new and social, the other what is settled.

Fixed

• Intent is read from what you typed, not from its French translation.
• Proper nouns are no longer translated: “My name is Rich” stored the French word riche. It now stores Rich.
• Questions about your name are recognised in English.
• Pre-written self-descriptions are removed: without material, she stays silent.

Upgrade note

• Clients still on 0.8.1 cannot receive this version through the in-app update and need the direct download link once (see 0.8.1.1).

0.8.1.1 [September 2026, date to confirm]

The in-app update can download a full version.

Fixed

• Downloads through the in-app update stopped at 400 MB, below the size of a full version. The limit is lifted. Because the limit lived in the installed version, the fix only takes effect for the update after the one that brings it.

0.8.1 [date to confirm]

Sentences composed by the substrate, preferences that form from experience, and prediction.

Added

• Sentences described in roles, then inflected and agreed from an attested lexicon. No language model and no canned replies; silence rather than a wrong form.
• A knowledge base of subjects and the links between them, from open public data.
• Preferences that form from encounters, with a confidence that can fall, unspoken below their own threshold.
• Prediction of what usually follows in her exchanges; surprise changes her behaviour.

0.8.0 22 August 2026 First 0.8 release

The first release of the 0.8 line.

What it does

• A cognitive substrate that keeps a live internal state, with an incidence registry: no organ is declared active without a measured effect.
• Cognitive-health safeguards, subjective time and life-cycle, cumulative learning, rest with replay and consolidation.
• Binocular visual perception and local voice synthesis (experimental).
• Live listening through the microphone, processed on the computer.
• The EVA Control Center: a supervision console with nine live views.
• In-app updates, signed by the publisher: nothing is downloaded or installed unless you click.