Interview: Minuette's Lesson

Equestria Daily doesn't get a lot of sci-fi submissions, so I was pleased to approve Minutette's Lesson for posting. It uses Sweetie Bot to explore one of the philosophical questions in artificial intelligence: what does it mean to be a "real" person? I interviewed the author, Airstream, and he shared his inspiration for writing it and some of the techniques he used to explore the idea in a way that makes for an interesting story.

Bold is me; regular text is Airstream.

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What inspired you to write Minuette's Lesson?

It was an odd convergence of a few things. First, it involved a previous bit of fanfiction that I read a while back, Friendship is Optimal.

A quick summary is that a CEO develops this AI for an MLP online roleplaying game. Long story short, it doesn't go well for us as a species. It's a great read, kind of scary in parts. And as I am sure the author meant for it to do, it got me interested in AI research and development. So I read up on it, ordered a few books, that whole thing.

But what interested me the most was the philosophy and moral questions, as opposed to the hows and whys. Is it moral to create an artificial intelligence? Is it truly intelligent, or just a clever bit of computer work? And the one that got me: if it can feel and think and act like we do, does it have a soul?

The other part was a sort of cross between a few things I found on EqD. The first and most obvious was the series Friendship is Witchcraft. I've only watched a few episodes of it, and obviously Sweetie Bot was one of them. The other was an article involving a Q&A with Lauren Faust on her original ideas about the show. She mentioned that Rarity was originally going to be the Element of Inspiration, but it was changed because they thought the concept was too difficult for the target audience to grasp.

Those two ideas were rolling around in my head for a while, and then I saw the picture that I later used as cover art for my story. One night, I sat down to type out a completely different thing, and I saw that picture...and it just kind of clicked. I started writing, and when the morning rolled around, I had that story finished and posted.

So you said that you're interested in AI. Are you a computer programmer?

No. I help to manage a computer network. I can't program to save my life, but I'm extremely interested in the social and ethical implications of different pieces of technology. AI is one of the big ones. Recently I've been looking into three dimensional printers, and before that it was particle accelerators, and before that it was helium-three reactors, and so on.

I liked the message that you had in Minuette's Lesson. It doesn't matter if you're synthetic or organic; you're self-aware, you're intelligent, so how you came to be that way doesn't matter. Just recently, I played Mass Effect 3. It's great science fiction because it lets you interact with some intelligent robots, and then it forces you to make a decision about whether an entire race of them has more right to live than an entire intelligent race of organic beings. Which one is more "real"? Is being organic/synthetic in origin even a valid basis for that decision?

It's an interesting concept, to be sure. I can only hope that when we do invent AI, or something like it, that we can treat the resulting entity with respect and empathy.

Let's talk about writing. What was the hardest part to get right?

The ending. Like any argument, taking your opinions and beliefs and presenting them in an orderly fashion is difficult, and I always found the hardest part of any debate to be the conclusion. It needs to be succinct, relatable, and memorable. But this wasn't a debate, so I had to make it entertaining, create an acceptable story arc, and present things not as my own thoughts but as the thoughts and actions of the characters.

Which you did by having Diamond Tiara bully Sweetie Belle and say she’s not a real pony, prompting her and Rarity to talk about it.

One thing that I really liked was the way you used specific details to get my attention and make your AU believeable. For example,

I began busying myself with the cleaning up. The diamond dust I had been forging into wires was gently swept up and put away, my soldering tools and magnifying glasses were stored in their respective drawers, and the ceramic I had been using to plate the dancer was neatly stacked in one corner. Waste not, want not, after all.

What were some other techniques you used to hook the reader’s interest?

What makes fanfiction both easier and more difficult than original composition is that the characters and setting are already in place. I can use this to my advantage by playing off of the readers’ pre-existing feelings towards these characters. For example, Sweetie Belle is widely liked and pretty adorable at times. Now imagine her stumbling into Rarity's boutique with a sizeable piece of her leg dangling by the smallest of threads, and you have a bloody mess. But I've taken away the blood, leaving only the emotional reaction and generating intrigue in the characterization I've provided.

The "hook" paragraph is the most important thing you write. It draws readers in, and it's difficult to do right. Mine starts with Rarity working on a project in her workshop. Many would assume it's a dress. It's not, as anyone who has read the story would know. Instead, we find that it's a computer chip. Now, we're curious to know what it does, and so I have begun to draw you into my narrative.

I also used world-building; Rarity being the Element of Inspiration and a roboticist opens up even more opportunities to generate interest. In this world, she brought Twilight back to Ponyville and was with her on the night of Luna's return. With that creative twist, I could take what was once extremely familiar and show it in a new and interesting light.

I tried to keep a few things close to the source material. Rarity's Cutie Mark is still diamonds, for example, but it means something different: using crystal components to conduct magical energy in "automatons".

What role did the dancing robot serve?

Aside from showing what Rarity's normal standard of work was, it served as a sort of foil to Sweetie Belle. By comparing the two, you can see a clear difference. I personally believe that the mark of a living creature is the capacity to change, so by showing her something incapable of change, we had an excellent way to make sure she could see that she was in fact different from the pretty but ultimately useless toys Rarity made for rich ponies.

What were you going for with Sweetie Bot's personality?

I tried to figure out what it would be like if a school-age girl had just been pulled out of thin air, with all the language and basic skills needed to function at the most basic level, but with no experience or defining characteristics. I decided that I'd set it about a year after she was first "born", and she had been able to pick up some social cues and develop the personality we know to an extent. In essence, I took her, made her a bit younger, and decided that she would ask a whole lot of questions.

Before I joined the Air Force, I worked with kids. Both my parents are educators, and constantly brought home stories of the cute and/or terrible things they saw. Obviously the average second grader isn't concerned with "What does it mean to be?" type questions, but one who was just recently assembled and thrown into the world might. Again, this is where I took liberties with the personalities of the characters.

What techniques did you use to express her personality in the story?

I kept the vocabulary fairly basic and tried to imagine what it would be like to talk to an elementary school aged girl about the nature of the soul and what it means to be.

Which was exactly as crazy as it sounds.

So the basic vocabulary came out, for example, in these lines:

Sweetie Belle nodded. “Right. We learned about that in school. Ponies are different than other animals because of something called…self-importance?”

“Self-awareness, Sweetie Belle.” I corrected her. “It’s called self-awareness. And yes, we ponies are one of a very few species that possess it.”

Bingo. Children make mistakes, and one of the best ways to write children is to have them occasionally stumble when faced with a difficult concept.

That was pretty effective. But probably my favourite line was

“If nopony can limit my right to choose, does this mean that I can use your makeup to get ready in the mornings?”

I laughed, lifting her onto my back. Sweetie Belle was back with me, the precocious little filly I loved once more. “Since when have you ever asked my permission to use my things, Sweetie Belle?” I asked.

When I saw that, I could really tell that Sweetie Bot had a personality; that line wasn't essential to the plot, so it came purely out of her character.

Well, I have a younger sister at home. Granted, I never had to put up with her stealing makeup from me, being a guy, but I knew that she wanted to emulate her sister in the show, so it seemed like a reasonable extension of her character. Of course, in the show she tried to emulate Rarity by making clothes of her own, but in the world I built, Rarity makes robots. And a robot building other robots is both horrifying and an ethical conundrum for another story entirely.

Oh my god. Yes. One thing I wondered, will Sweetie Bot ever get a cutie mark?

Good question. I think that she will, and she'll have a golden opportunity. In my headcanon, she will eventually get a "grown-up" body to be transferred to, which will have a mark. But before that, she will have the opportunity to discover herself, and when she does, she'll be able to design her own mark. No other pony will be able to claim that.

I wouldn't mind reading about that. Is there anything you'd like to add before we finish?

One thing. Like Rarity in my story, I created something that turned out to be much bigger than what I put into it. It's the first story I ever wrote that made it to EqD, and I love it dearly. Eventually, I plan to do one for each of the Crusaders, some twist on who they are. I'm considering mechas. But before that, if people who read this liked the way I write, I'd suggest they read the things I've really poured a lot of myself into, starting with Lines and Webs. I'm grateful to all of those who read my stories and put up with my occasional bouts of self-indulgent behavior, and I give thanks to them all. They're the best. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Amacita, and Guardian Gryphon for giving me that first push out of the nest, and each of my many readers and fans. I write because of you guys.

Oh, and Celestia is Best Princess.