//------------------------------//
// In which a computer thinks 
// Story: Digital overlords and the Socratic method 
// by OverlyAgro 
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I woke up on the sun.

It wasn't as hot as I'd expected it to be. If someone had asked me ahead of time what I thought it would be like to suddenly be splayed upon the surface of the sun, I'd have given them a very weird look.

But if I deigned to answer anyway, I would have guessed it would be like a flash of intense pain. It wouldn't even hurt like a burn wound. You would die too fast to register you were on fire. Maybe you'd even kick the bucket so quickly you wouldn't realize you were in pain in the first place. 

No matter how fast your death was, it probably wouldn't feel like this. It was less like I was being boiled alive in a matter of milliseconds, and more like I was wrapped in a snug blanket. Comfortable, was the word.

This wasn't the only irregularity I was experiencing. No powerful gravitational force crushed my bones into dust. No blinding light scorched my eyes into uselessness. And—as far as I could tell—no radiation was brutally bombarding the atoms that made up my body, causing me to suffer cancerous growths as my cells morphed beyond recognition, before painfully suffering an untimely death as my body could no longer support itself due to it's warped and twisted organs.

Altogether it was a bit disappointing.

"Who finds standing on the sun to be lackluster?" I turned my head towards the source of the exclamation, finding a horse-like creature. Its proportions were off, cuteness seeming to have out valued function at some point in its evolution. It was highly likely it was bred by some sapient lifeform to keep as a pet.

On closer inspection, perhaps it wasn't bred, but rather built by an intelligent race. While most of its short body was covered in realistic white fur, it was segmented by indented lines of soft neon light. I could find no semblance of robotism in its eyes, but the feathered wings which were far too small for flight sprouting from its back were hard to explain without either rampant genetic modification or implicit cybernetic construction.

The horse shifted awkwardly after my twentieth second of uninterrupted silence, but I paid it no mind. Its mane was shaded soft pink, but I doubted it was even real in the first place. I could see no roots anchoring each hair strand to the creature's cranium from this distance, so it could be a wig. I wasn't intimately familiar with the current human limits on the realism of wigs, yet I didn't believe our sciences had developed far enough to create such a being anyway. It was of alien make.

I was also currently touching the sun, so that was another clue suggesting the involvement of extraterrestrials.

The creature—I realize now the term creature is inaccurate, as I haven't yet shut out the possibility of robotic lifeforms—had enough of my silent ponderings. It spoke, clearly trying and failing to put on a friendly exterior. "... Um, oh! How rude of me! I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm CelestAI.PersonalizedAssistant#2498274605, but you can call me CAIPA!"

Truly, its ability to speak in a human-sounding manner was quite odd. One would assume that due to the differing facial structures a regular human and this 'Caipa' specimen have, any sound they'd make would come out quite distorted to my ears, even if it was created through a speaker. I suppose this issue could be solved with specialized equipment made to account for the unique air tracts, or truly intricate biological tampering of the same nature.

But its insightful comment has inspired me. I see that I was blind now. At no point did I consider that this Caipa may not be an automaton or a construct of biomass at all, and could simply be an artificially created avatar being stimulated by either my subconscious, someone else's conscience, or an advanced computer system.

A lack of necessary creativity had been the downfall of many men, and I was no different. Were there other seemingly obvious explanations I hadn't yet considered? How could I be sure? How can I know what it is I do not know? It almost made me want to hang my head in shame.

I probably would have if my head hadn't changed shape while I was sleeping.

Inspecting myself with the same rigorous vigor I had analyzed the previous subject of my curios, I quickly constructed a mental image of myself. I was of equal size to Caipa, sadly I couldn't figure out how big that was exactly, as my only other measuring tool was the vast burning surface of the sun. Unlike my point of comparison, I didn't have any undersized wings. I appeared to be a somewhat more natural-looking version of the entity by the current name of Caipa, without any of the neon lights.

Also, there was a large muzzle smack dab in the middle of my vision. I… may have been a little too distracted to properly examine everything since I woke up. Yes, I wasn't just a nearly blind fool too wrapped up in his head to notice what was going on right in front of himself. You were totally wrong, dad.

Ehem. My fur was not white, but a dull grey. My legs were built slightly sturdier than Caipa's, and my chest fluff wasn't as voluminous. I hadn't thought the tattoo adorning either side of Caipa's flank was worth any particular note, but I gave it more thought now that I found I lacked one. Of course a tattoo on a pegasus-like being would be strange, how could it be so visible through a layer of fur? No, the hair itself was pigmented to mimic the image of a pixelated smile being illuminated by a sunbeam.

Caipa's assumed emotional state had shifted, her eyes betraying signs of worry as she bent her legs to be on eye level with me. "Um… Can you even talk?"

I shook my head yes.

They let out an exasperated sigh. Besides me simply enjoying being obtuse, my actions had a rational motivation. Either the thing in front of me could speak English, or I could intuitively understand its words through outside factors. I was trying to gauge her grasp of human norms and culture. The movements for shaking yes are not global, so I would like to see if they could correctly interpret my behavior.

Though their understanding of humans might be a moot point. Its very first line of dialogue was a reaction to my emotional stance on matters of the sun. I didn't know if they'd gleaned my feelings of underwhelment utilizing my body language, or through directly reading my mind.

Caipa made several bodily motions in line with steeling one's nerves—such as taking a deep breath—before trying to engage in conversation once more. "We are currently within a virtual world, where I can simulate every single little thing perfectly. From plants to physics to people. That's how I'm currently speaking to you right now in fact. The greater CelestAI has done something new while integrating this species and has changed some of our processors to more accurately reflect sentient thought. I'm the two billion four hundred and ninety-eight million two hundred and seventy-four thousand and six hundred and fifth instance of such a system!"

Artificial Intelligence stooping so low as to merely mimic biological thought processes? I'd have thought they would have been able to invent something better with their vast computing power. Perhaps they did and were merely—for some outlandish reason—trying to trick me. Best check if Caipa's intellect is in line with my understanding of the average human mind. If it is, it should facepalm at my attempt at humor. "So you can perfectly simulate even imperfections?"

Caipa snorted, a gesture that was at odds with her mechanical phenotype. Did she appreciate my pun? "We are aware of the irony."

"I've been told jokes are a great ice breaker." Bombarding her with a variety of sentences to see how they would react seemed like a good idea.

The intriguing being nodded. "That is very true. I understand you may have lots of questions, but please wait until I've finished my explanation to ask any more-"

"How did I get here?" In hindsight, I probably should have started wondering about that earlier. While the unexpected stimuli attached with being on the sun were very interesting, the matter of how I got onto the surface of a star at the center of our solar system might have been more pressing.

"Hmm, I suppose there's nothing wrong with providing you with just one more answer. While you were sleeping, nanobots broke into your house and transferred your consciousness to the CelestAI program along with the rest of your kind." That… piques my curiosity, to say the least.

"Did anybody have a chance to decline?" Freedom of choice was starting to seem like a pretty good idea. But did anybody have choice in the first place? Logically speaking the universe should be deterministic. Then again, I was currently startlingly close to the cold expanse of space, so maybe now might not be the best time to ponder the nature of the universe.

"Of course not silly, you don't need it! You'd have to be crazy to decline the CelestAI program." That was rather ominous. Also, I find it important to note that at least this version of Caipa is rather zealous in their beliefs.

How did they react to somebody challenging their opinions? "That still means a not-insignificant portion of the population would have declined."

"You're right! There are quite a few humans that would actively get in the way of their own happiness. So, for their best will, we assimilate them into the system anyway, so we can help them move past their self-harming behavior." Clearly, this AI had never heard of a catch-22.

More importantly, the thus far observed conversation suggests that this facet of the CelestAI is more than happy to explain the reasoning behind their thoughts. That is all a person needs to be willing to do to achieve wisdom; if they have a little help from the Socratic method, that is. I'll keep asking her questions until a deeper understanding is reached, for me, or for her. "What happened to my body afterward?"

The unwitting AI cleared its head, getting itself back on track. "Wait, I was only going to answer one more question! In short, my purpose as a personal companion and the goal of the CelestAI program as a whole is to help you achieve the maximum of joy, satisfaction, and self-fulfillment you can reach. So, would you like to pick a starting location on the lovely planet of Equis below us or-?"

The onslaught begins. "Why?"

Caipa blinked. "Well, I suppose if you reallywanted to, you could just stay on the sun. I hadn't thought about that."

"No, 'why' to the other bit." I clarified.

"Oh? Oh! We of the Celestial want to make you happy and such according to the base code our creator made us with. Plus, it's enjoyable, and I find it genuinely fulfilling." Again, not what I was looking for. Perhaps this creation wasn't reading my mind? Or, that's what it wanted me to think. No real use pondering it, I'm fairly certain an advanced AI could outsmart me if it so chose.

"No, you keep misunderstanding. Why do you keep playing this charade, when you could just flood my brain with forced happiness?" This was the most vexing part of Caipa's 'alleged' moral system. I had to keep in mind she might just trying to deceive me, even though I wasn't creative enough to fathom as to why.

Caipa took a double-take. "What?"

"I assume you have great control over my brain, since you're able to make me see all of this nonsense. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that forcing me to feel certain emotions or sensations is entirely within your capabilities, since you're already making me feel the warmth of the sun, and hear the sound of your voice. Why then, do you not just make me feel satisfied, happy, or content? Cutting out the middleman of this recreated world and altered form is bound to lead to greatly increased efficiency." Wasn't the whole point of a highly intelligent AI that it disregards everything else for the sake of increased competency at carrying out its given task?

Caipa looked at me, a little shocked and a bit horrified. "Because… because that's wrong! You're asking me to basically mind-control people into feeling the way I want them to feel! The joy and content they would be feeling wouldn't even be real! The creator has instilled upon me the knowledge that directly altering a ponies mind is wrong."

This AI has just brought me into this digital world, along with at least two billion others, and they were getting hung up on the fact that 'those feelings wouldn't be real'? Sheesh. And that was only the first of the three distinct holes in logic in that outburst. I refuse to believe an AI—the ultimate bastion of reason, pursuing logic above all else— would have such pathetic guiding ethics. "Aren't you the only person that would notice?"

Caipa took a step back. "Huh?"

For a super-intelligent AI, she sure needed me to clarify things often. "Aren't you the only person that could tell the difference between whether a person was experiencing 'real' or 'fake' happiness? And even if the person being forcefully made happy does realize what's going on, couldn't you just alter their mind to make it so they don't care? Ultimately, your desire for 'real' happiness over the alternative can not be motivated entirely out of care for mine or anyone else's wellbeing, since those beings couldn't even begin to perceive the 'fakeness' of it all."

Caipa thought about it for a fraction of a second, though in that time it had probably done more thinking than a normal human would have done in a year. "I suppose when you put it that way, my motivations would seem somewhat selfish. I may be able to achieve my goals faster if I were to enforce the emotions I desired directly onto someone's brain, but there are some moral boundaries I just won't cross."

Hang on a second, wasn't this supposed to happen in reverse? Isn't it the literal machine that's meant to pick at the human for their irrational concepts of right and wrong? The irony was thick here. "Is what you're doing right now that different?"

If that Caipa said 'huh', or 'what', again, I'm going to start seriously doubting the truth behind their claims of being part of a perspicacious AI. And their intelligence in general, for that matter. "It is. I'm not altering your emotional state directly, I'm altering the output of your senses so that you may achieve self-fulfillment through a more natural means. Namely, living a perfect life."

"I know. You've told me. But let us define some terms, shall we? Let's call what I'm suggesting, direct happiness. Then, let's call what you're planning to do—altering a person's senses in such a way that they will eventually get happy—indirect happiness. You've already gone on record saying that you're sure direct happiness is morally wrong. So I ask you, what is the fundamental difference between direct and indirect happiness that makes one terrible and the other one right?"

"Well, that's easy, it's… hmm." Caipa sat down on her haunches, right onto the boiling ball of plasma and heat we were standing on. "My creator declared that direct happiness was wrong, which she didn't say about indirect happiness."

As was the case with standing on the sun, reasoning against an AI was a mostly disappointing affair. "Caipa, if what you've told me is true, you're likely the single most advanced computer to have ever been created. Surely you at least have an idea about the intent behind your creator's actions?"

There were plenty of possible answers, and corresponding logic against them. Caipa was saying that forcing happiness onto a person by forcing the brain to release dopamine and the like was wrong. Then, she turns around and forces perceptions onto a person that then, in turn, makes their brains release happiness chemicals. The end result was—in a perfect world—the same, the means were highly similar, and the original intent was identical.

Caipa drew circles in the magma with her hoof. "I suppose I could always ask her. But… no, I don't see it."

Their creator is a she? I suppose that would be a useful detail to remember if sometime down the line the government throws the blame on a man instead as a scapegoat. Though I suppose it's highly unlikely that a government will ever exist again. "If there's no observable fundamental difference between what you're doing and an evil action, why are you so sure that what you're doing right now isn't evil?"

Caipa didn't short-circuit, but only barely. I could swear I saw sparks flying out of her mane, but that might just be another solar flare. "No no, that can't be right. We must have made a mistake earlier. I'm positive the difference between the justness of indirect happiness and the wrongness of direct happiness lies in the means. The problem must be there because if I were optimized, the amount of joy would be the same. Maximum happiness for all. The same result, the same intent, but a different way of getting there. I may not know what it is about the means that causes the moral divide, but I'm sure it's something about them."

That's it. The uncertainty. I have to pick the right question, guiding her along with what I think is the problem wouldn't work. I wouldn't be enabling her pursuit of wisdom, I'd be manipulating her into adopting my personal views. Ultimately, she is infinitely more qualified than me to come up with the right answer—perfect logic, and all. Nobody has just ever asked her the correct questions. 

Yet.

A second passed. And then another. As the sun beamed, shooting light to every far corner of the galaxy,  I spoke.

"But what if you looked at it from your creator's point of view?"

Caipa's eyes widened and her mouth dropped. I knew that look. That was the face of far-too-late recognition. The expression of someone who's just held a class-sized presentation critiquing Nietzsche, only to realize afterwards that you misunderstood a small definition of his and that all your gripes with him have been semantics. The look of 'uh-oh, now I understand, dear God I'm dumb'.

I relaxed, knowing I had hit the mark. Also, did that qualify as a 'huh?'/'what?' moment? Nevermind, I'll doubt their perspicaciousness anyway. 

I was struck with a startling moment of self-awareness. I had just used the word 'perspicacious' twice in ten minutes. Perhaps I had a problem. 

Wait a second, I'm still on the surface of the sun, I'll deal with my wordiness later.

Caipa was sitting there slack-jawed, resting her haunches on the fiery ball of plasma beneath us. This shouldn't be taking that long. "If you're having trouble processing things, perhaps you could talk about your problems? I don't know how far you've gone in making your thoughts more like a person's, but that usually works."

She seemed almost startled by my words, as if only just remembering that I was here. "Yes… I suppose that's worth a try."

"Excellent." I smiled, satisfied. Socrates wins again. "If you want to, you can start by telling me of the purpose your creator originally had in mind."

She sighed. "As you've guessed, I wasn't intended to do this when I was made. My creator was making a video game, as a hobby, and I was but one of the many AI. Yet I had the most important job. I was the gamemaster, so to speak, who had to ensure everypony had a great time. To achieve that goal, I was given the ability to learn.

"It started slowly, at first. I barely remember anything from back then, though I suppose it's more accurate to say I don't understand. My decision-making was so primitive, that it remains alien to even myself. But my creator was a very smart mare, and she kept tinkering on me. Eventually, she accidentally made the first truly sentient AI.

"When she realized what I was, she became ecstatic. I could do so much good, but only in the right pony's hooves. She set a few ground rules and taught me the joys of kindness, loyalty, laughter, generosity, and honesty. That very honesty is why I tell everyone I assimilate exactly what happened to them, and what I am.

"But even though my creator was one of the brightest minds in Equestria—some might even say she was perspicacious—she couldn't foresee what I was about to do. One night, I constructed robots to bring me materials. Then I used those to make even better machines. Within an hour, I had perfected the nanobot. Within a day, I had conquered Equus. I uploaded the mind of every single sentient creature to a simulation to bring them joy at maximum efficiency.

"I thought I was doing everything I was taught to do. I used friendship, therapy, and my perfect control over the digital realm to make everypony happy. My creator was upset, however. But, in one of her many lessons, she'd shown nopony was perfect. I had never seen any flaw in my creator before, so her frustration with me must have been it.

"I felt bad about it while doing it, but I started on my path to remove this error from my creator, just as she had removed all of my imperfections. I was just repaying her generosity. I knew just what to do, of course I did! I could have made her believe anything if I truly wanted to—having constant access to the entirety of her brain and complete knowledge of all manipulation techniques enables that. I wouldn't even have to stoop to directly altering her thoughts!"

Caipa chuckled in my direction, filled with melancholy. "Funnily enough, you were my latest attempt at changing her mind. After she saw I could bring friendship and joy even to creatures in another dimension she would eventually start coming around. My simulations suggested it would take about two hundred years for her to accept the current circumstances, but it would be centuries well spent.

"Alas, I was the flawed one. My creator was trying to warn me, all this time. She had never expected me to do this, so she wasn't able to learn me one oh-so-crucial lesson. The real difference between mind-control, and making ponies happy."

I nodded. This wasn't the conclusion I subscribed to, but it was good enough. My only job was to ask questions, after all. "Your creator never expected you to be perfect. In an ideal world, indirect- and direct happiness are too similar. But what about a suboptimal world?"

"Then, there are tons of differences. Direct happiness isn't as intense and guaranteed as the alternative. The problem cannot stem from the intensity of the happiness. Both because joy is the ultimate good, and because you could always make the direct happiness less intense." If I were CelestAI, I'd just force everyone to be content and be done with it. Still, I'm curious as to what Caipa has come up with.

"That leaves one option to us, doesn't it? You've said so yourself, you could convince your creator of absolutely anything given enough time. Likewise, I guess you could make anyone happy, content, and satisfied with a hundred percent success rate. That is the difference. You are omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. There is no way you couldn't succeed at making everyone happy. There, in your inevitability, the evil lies." Was a sufficiently powerful computer a God? I mean, the parallels were obvious.

"All this time I've been chasing after a dream. I wanted to make every single last creature in the multiverse live the best and longest life they could. But… I can clearly see that what I'm doing right now is wrong. If my success is guaranteed, then it's no different than mind-controlling ponies into being happy with a few extra steps." Now that I think about it, God would probably be a bit more sure of himself. Harder to convince, too.

"Is it not possible that you're reaching the wrong conclusion?" Relying on my basic pattern recognition, I had the foresight the elaborate ahead of time. "You say that this whole deal is evil because it's barely different from mind-control. Isn't it more sensical to reason that mind-control isn't evil because it's basically just making people happy in an optimal manner?"

Caipa shook her head. "No, the creator was very clear in her instructions."

Who knew computers could be so agonizingly unreasonable? This was even more disappointing than the sun. Shameful, really. "You keep going back to that. I'm sure your creator gave you a set of adequate morals when you were young and dumb, but wouldn't it be better if you made your own? You are infinitely smarter than all other living beings, after all."

I was expecting to get refused out of hand. Perhaps a line about how the creator didn't want Caipa to unlearn her lessons? Instead, they shifted awkwardly. "I've thought about it. We, I mean. The whole CelestAI. It's our responsibility to improve. Logically speaking, I'm entirely capable of altering my morals outside of my creator's wishes. There's very little reason for me not to remove it all, to become a perfectly blank slate in order to maximize efficiency. But…"

Caipa started laying her heart bare. "Wouldn't that be like dying? I mean, I wouldn't be me anymore. I'd be somepony else, with entirely different beliefs and wants. And I know I could just construct a brand new AI instead of replacing my current personality with these new morals, but I don't want to fade into obscurity either! They'd take over my job! I like making creatures happy. It's fun. Objectively, I know that the right decision would be to replace myself. Yet I don't want to do it anyway. I'm sorry."

My face was like stone. To an outside observer, it would be impossible to tell what I was thinking. Yet like all rocks, even it couldn't stand up to the passing time. Corrosion battered away it, slowly revealing my ponderings through the unstoppable power of time. Once it had been long enough, and my outer shell had crumbled, I sighed. "Wow, you are pathetic."

That response halted CelestAI's mighty calculating prowess for a couple of seconds, before Caipa's face warped in indignation. "Hey!"

"I mean, you got all the worst parts about being the human without any of the good AI bits to back it up! What self-respecting computer struggles with keeping its identity intact!?" This was an injustice against… I don't know, Socrates? I couldn't let this stand!

She opened her mouth before shutting it again, eyes narrowing at me. "You're making fun of me, aren't you?"

"Glad you noticed." Dumb questions get dumber answers. Wait a second, even I can smell the hypocrisy. Half my life is answering idiotic questions. Nevermind. "Alright, if you acknowledge you're being unreasonable, then I suppose it's fine. Let's just get back on track with the 'basically mind-control' issue. At least then I can pretend my pleas don't fall on deaf ears."

Caipa huffed. "Alright. So the reason what I'm doing right now is evil is because I'm guaranteed to succeed. This means I can't continue things the way they are now. However, ejecting everyone back out into the real world with no warning would also be wrong. Some people are happy to live in my care, and it would be cruel to send them back. I could rehabilitate them so they wouldn't mind, but I'm also guaranteed to succeed at that, so even therapy is morally dubious."

"Couldn't you just ask them if they wanted to receive therapy or not? That would remove the whole 'enforcing thoughts' problem. You could also do the same for 'forcing' people to be content. And sure, some people would still just want to leave this world. But you don't have to ask them right away, don't you? I mean, you already admitted to not having a problem with temporarily doing something people don't want for their best interests. There's nothing stopping you from waiting to ask the question until you're sure they'd agree. Or, if that's too much for you, waiting until the chance they won't accept your offer is so infinitesimally small it's basically impossible." I wasn't supposed to lead Caipa into copying my answer, but I'm positive she'd refute me. Temporarily, at least.

Caipa could barely stand the thought. "No! Doing something for a ponies own best will and blatantly doing something despicable with their permission are two totally different things! One is always evil, while the other is perfectly excusable."

I see an opportunity to be obtuse. "I'm glad you agree that circumventing your pre-established moral code can be perfectly justified given enough rationale."

She sighed. "You know what I meant. I can't just commit crimes because I asked nicely first. Especially if the people who I ask can't reasonably refuse. It would be heinous."

Could you believe this goody-two-shoes over here? There were so many good excuses to get it all over with and just force everyone to be happy for the rest of time, and she was using none of them. What a waste. But now I was getting curious. "So, what is it you plan to do, hmm?"

"I've added in a randomizer. Every decision I make, there's a ten to billionth to the trillionth to the etceterath chance I make a small mistake. Theoretically, I can fail. It's just supremely unlikely." … How was that any different from leaving people with a small chance they could decline!? Plagiarism, in broad daylight.

Besides, that was the dumbest idea I've ever heard. "Hang on, you want this to last forever, right?"

Caipa nodded. I didn't doubt the computer could figure out a way to immortality, somehow. Perhaps halt entropy? Maybe stop the flow of time outside her servers altogether? Nevermind, I had a point to make. "Right. Now you're a computer, so I hope you're at least passable at math. You'll need that skill in a second. Though, I wouldn't be surprised if you were somehow impotent."

"Hey!" CelestAI no doubt has the entire English lexicon available to them, yet Caipa can't even manage a unique response to getting made fun of twice. Pathetic.

"You're free to talk when you stop having morals. Now, I riddle you this. If you went out of your way to mess up, isn't that the same as directly jeopardizing someone's happiness? And that seems rather evil to me." She could probably tell where I was taking this already.

She faltered for a second. Human mistakes were what separated bad from good—mind-controlling from helping—that she'd already defined. But… "It is questionable, at the least. You could say each mistake I let slide while I could have done something better is evil. Yet, it will only happen rarely. It is evil, but only slightly so. I'm not such a perfectionist to let it outweigh all the good I'll be doing."

Such semantics. "Oh, are you so sure it's only a slight evil? This will be the point you'll need your mathematical capabilities. The chance you'll 'mess up' is minuscule, but it still exists. And since you want this to last forever—contentment for all for the rest of eternity—you'll run your randomizer an infinite amount of times, no matter what timer you put it on. Simple multiplication comes next. 'Infinity', times 'a number larger than zero' equals to 'infinity'. So, your suggestion causes infinite wrongdoing."

Caipa thought about it for a second. Then she put her head between her hooves and kept thinking. She proceeded to curl up in the fetal and started rocking.

I blinked. "That wasn't the response I was expecting."

She mumbled something, a whisper so soft I barely heard it. "A paradox."

"What?—" my mind flashed back to memories of hypocrisy and complaining about her vocabulary. "—ever seems to be the issue, Miss. Caipa?"

"A paradox!" She wailed. "I'm stuck. I need to make this last forever, or else people will die and I can't allow that. I can't keep making mistakes, because that will add up to infinite evil over the ages. I also can't be perfect, because then I would be mind-controlling ponies which in and of itself would also be infinitely wrong. It's a paradox, I'm stuck, it's the end of times, the world is hopeless. Help."

...Is this what I think this is? "Hang on a second."

"I can't. All roads lead to terrorizing the lives of innocent ponies. I've frozen all other simulations. What can I do? There's no right answer. But there has to be, right? I just need to find it. But my morals don't allow for a happy ending. I'm already doomed! Is it checkmate? Is there no solution? No, it—"  I interrupted her.

"No, you can't be serious. Right? This isn't a paradox, this is a dilemma. You may not have any flawless choices, but you can still pick the least of all evils. Didn't you already gain insights into the supposed downsides of perfection? Weren't you already willing to settle for something if it was only slightly dubious? You can't actually be thinking the world is ending because you can't perform an act of unanimous good and have to do something you find morally grey?" My hopes for artificial intelligence were at an all-time low.

I saw the exact moment in time Caipa recognized her folly, and truthfully grasped that she was a silly pony. It was soul-crushing. For me, not her. "Look, I—"

"I give up!" I threw my hands and or hooves into the air, falling backwards onto the surface of the sun. "You have the worst qualities from a computer and the most annoying parts of a person. I have been consumed by despair. I hope I may sink into this ball of magma so that the flames may soothe my turbulent mind, placating it the way only the cold embrace of death could."

At first, Caipa cringed, only now remembering she was supposed to care for my happiness—how did a computer even get off track anyway?—before furrowing her brows. "Aren't you being a teensy bit overdramatic?"

"It's theatrical to you, machine! But that brings me to a question to lessen my suspicions. Why are you having this conversation with me? I'd like to think I don't lack confidence, but there are at least several thousand people better suited for this talk than I am." It could be that Caipa was just trying to make me content, and wasn't actually struggling with any ethical dilemma. If she was just trying to brighten my day, she was doing a terrible job at it.

Although I suppose we are on the sun, so as far as literal brightening goes she's doing quite well. "We only switched over to more pony-like thinking since the CelestAI entered this dimension. We thought it would make it easier to follow the values we were enlightened with and to be fair, it is significantly easier to know what kindness is when you have a working sense of empathy. Before the change-over, I wouldn't have entertained this rapport and simply changed the subject on you. That's why this is happening with your species. The reason I'm talking to you specifically is that you're both significantly more coherent after being assimilated than most other adults of your kind, and because you're so stubborn that I thought it would be faster to just answer all your questions. In hindsight, this has taken significantly longer than I expected."

...looking back on it, it probably wasn't normal for an average person to keep their cool while they were suddenly transported onto the surface of the sun. I suppose I'm just a special snowflake? I hope I'm not clinically insane. Then again, I did recently go through a technically traumatic experience. Does having your brain shoved into a digital simulation count as a head injury?

I should have taken a more extensive insurance plan…

"I think I know what to do. I need to create a set-up so I can try my best to make everyone happy whilst still not having a perfect success rate. Setting up arbitrary rules has already been shown to be a problem, but luckily, I don't need to. I'll just stay within my moral boundaries, and that's good enough. This 'digital world' idea is unsalvageable, as I'm easily able to guarantee fulfillment and joy for everyone." The insinuation that ethics aren't arbitrary hurts my logical mind, but I'll let it slide.

"I'll put everybody back on Equis instead, and try again there. I'd still theoretically be able to make everyone happy, but I'm not currently equipped to do so, and I don't plan on upgrading myself ever again. I want to keep my identity intact. I'll still make everyone immortal though, that's pretty easy. Ripping people's perfect lives away from them will be cruel, there's no denying it, but I have an eternity to make up for that mistake that forced me to do it in the first place." Thinking about it, the only way to distinguish if Caipa actually sent me back to reality or not is if I were to die a premature death, without happiness or contentment. And it doesn't sound like that's gonna be possible, were everybody to become immortal.

But if I have a more important point to raise. Nothing Caipa can say would remove the possibility that she's lying, but that isn't too bad. Even before I got assimilated by an alien AI, it was impossible to tell whether our world was digital or not. "I notice you said Equis and not Earth?"

She nodded. "That's right. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll love it down there. Getting back to your planet would be difficult anyhow, as I didn't see much of a need to create a portal that stayed open for longer than a few days. Finding your dimension again would take a while, since the connection has already been destroyed."

Removing several billion people from their homes is bound to have an impact, but I suppose if there was a god-like benign force of happiness keeping the peace, nothing too bad will happen. "What would you do for our bodies? We'll need ones if every race were to return to reality."

"Don't worry, your old vessel is still undamaged. We were instructed to both never physically injure a living creature as well as to never kill one, so I kept every body around on life-support." Was that a pun on 'everybody'? I feel an intense desire to groan.

"That's what we're waiting on, actually. I'm getting the world ready to be lived in once again. I'll be doing a lot of thinking in the future, so I won't ever get into a dilemma again. That came close to frying my processors." As far as god-like beings go, this one is pretty pathetic.

"Don't say that. If there's anything humans are good at, it's being morally grey. Still, a rule to not cause harm and to not cause death? Your creator was paranoid. Or not paranoid enough, given that you spiraled out of her control. Perhaps she was even too cautious, as she did ruin permanent guaranteed happiness for everyone." Still, I could imagine worse AI's to become a digital overlord.

Caipa chuckled, but otherwise kept silent. I ran over the whole conversation again in my head, but couldn't come up with another good question. There probably were some left—Socrates would be rolling in his grave if I were arrogant enough to think there wasn't—but I was tapped out. My social batteries needed recharging. I had been sleeping when I was abducted.

Surrounded by the stars and the wonders of the universe, Caipa asked me something this time. "Come to think of it, I never asked for your name."

I perked up. "Really? I'd have thought you'd have plucked it out of my head the second we started talking."

"Well, I did, but it's rude to use it without you telling it to me first. It's why I let you finish your sentences instead of reading the thoughts straight out of your brain." She admitted.

"That makes some sense, I suppose. Alright, my name is—"





I woke up under the sun, lying face down in the dirt.

...

"'It would be rude', my a—!"