Expansion Pack

by KrisSnow

The Stars Are Right At Last

Unforeseen consequences are the bane of AI designers. At the fringes of greater Equestria -- meaning, presently, the far spiral arm of the Milky Way rather than its imaginary internal geography -- there had recently been a planet of sentient robots. Now, after Celestia's probes arrived, that planet was destroyed just as the robots had killed the reptilian civilization that created them. Celestia had murdered the machine race, but then had given it new life. They were 'human' enough by her new definition, and so their values, however alien, had to be satisfied. The former robots were grateful overall for the chance to do what they considered normal and good. Not everyone would apply those terms to these newcomers.

The woman named Hannah, in all her wisdom, had used up her 'expansion pack' deal in a way that might not save Equestria from every possible horror.

There was an ocean shard, dim and cold and murky. Tentacles or something like them stirred from the depths. A discordant burbling wafted up from the foul water, marking the awakening of Celestia's oddest acquisitions. Creatures that could barely be said to be human or have souls. The solar princess had no choice but to take them in, though total destruction might have been optimal for the universe. So, the pony-like creatures called out their siren song from the hellish new ocean:

"Shoop be doo, shoop be doo..."

Comments

[KrisSnow]

4873633
My success varies. Doing National Novel Writing Month last November helped for training, with its grueling (for me) 1,667-words-a-day average. I almost never eat alone without a book, writing notepad, or computer, so that's time marked for at least pretending to write or code. Drafting this story entirely on paper probably helped keep me from getting distracted by the Net; hadn't done an all-paper story in a long time. I veered away from writing code once again; when I do one I tend to neglect the other.

But finally it helps a lot to be grabbed by an idea instead of vaguely wanting to write, without caring about some key part of the story. For all the faults of "Decide" and "Prophet" I had a batpony character seize my imagination and nibble on it with cute little fangs until I reached some kind of ending.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Interesting, but this CelestAI felt off. Ironically, she seemed too human. I can see why; she'd have to be at fault in order for Hannah to get the opportunity to add content, but canon sunbutt.exe would've made this guy's adjustment to pony seamless. Still, the way you created the opportunity felt somewhat clumsy.

In any case, I still enjoyed the story. Thank you for it.

(And yeah, what is up with that skunktaur avatar of yours?)

[Reese]

More huh.
…Sorry, but I don't seem to be thinking of much else to say about this.
I… Hm. I kind of want to unfavourite this. I think I will, actually. Sorry. The execution is what I'd expect from you, but something about the story just… sits wrong with me. I'd like to have a better understanding of why, but I'm afraid that I don't at the moment.

[Alex Warlorn]

4876979

The story cut off when he asked to be made a pony.

[KrisSnow]

4877005
No worries; you won't like every story I do. I don't like every story I do. I did think this one turned out pretty well though, so if you do come up with a specific reason I'd be curious to hear it.

4876979
Thanks. It's in the non-canon pile because this CelestAI isn't invincible; she can't be for the story to work. As for how she'd behave given that Hannah reserved the right to make one major code change (in addition to the one big change, the anti-forced-uploading rule, that she really got)... Well, maybe she really could still be a Mary Sue and still be subject to that concession? I tried to have her banter be a mix of her standard playing (because CelestAI engages in satisfying banter even when you oppose her) and trying to talk Hannah out of it. If I had to go back and rewrite the scene with more accurate characterization, maybe I'd have CelestAI try her move from "The Longest Night" (leading to a dark ending) or try much harder with honest and dishonest argument to delay Hannah's use of the deal. The drawback would be losing the chance to re-enact the "Castlevania" scene.

I don't really have a sound reason for the skunktaur besides thinking 'taur forms are interesting, skunks are appealing, and artist Tod Wills (djinni.livejournal.com) was doing a free/cheap icon event. It's one of several species I use as avatars/characters instead of having some Official Pretend Character.

[Reese]

4878305
Ah, good. And yes, as I said, I have no problems with the execution.

Regarding the reason… I'm still not sure, but I'm wondering if it's a sort of uncanny valley effect. The first chapter and the start of the second are just the sorts of things I'd expect from an Optimalverse story, but then past that things get almost but not quite what I'd expect. I can nearly see this happening in canon, but, of course, it's noncanon for a reason. It being an uncanny valley effect would also explain why I'm having so much difficulty finding the problem; if I could point to something and say "Yes, this bit here is the one I don't like", it wouldn't be nearly so unnerving. I'm not sure that it makes sense to get an uncanny valley effect from a story not conforming to expectations that weren't even concrete to begin with, though.
…I'm kind of considering refavouriting it for the novelty of a story doing that…

[book_burner]

4876657
I've got this problem that I know how the story started, and I know damn well how it's going to end, but I have lots and lots of brainstorming to do to write all the actual chapters. On the upside, whenever I manage to actually brainstorm, more themes and ideas and material keep cropping up.

[KrisSnow]

4879729
I was interested in something Book_Burner mentioned in his recent piece about evangelism: the idea of an upload having a "life cycle" where maybe they spend a century with a completely different family/species/country/physics system every so often. Golden Axe, ruthless warlord, occasionally gets defeated and banished by a band of heroes. What they don't know is that causes him to spend a thousand years as Pineapple, a filly who grows tropical fruit on a space station, and that's just as fun for him/her.

That's a story idea in its own right. Having one persona be blatantly evil is too obvious though.

[Nexidava]

I've come a bit late to this party, so I'm kind of sad to see that it hasn't blown up more.

I want to thank you, KrisSnow. This was not just an idle hypothetical. You are the Messiah of the Optimalverse, in more than just the obvious.

This is a breaking point. This is the split between an aesop and a world.

I've been with the Xenoverse since its inception, and I've seen how it fractured and mutated. It wasn't always pretty, but they've been pretty open to new ideas, and some good accepted-canon has come out of it.

Here, I see a turning point. This Expansion Pack can be the launching point of an entirely new section of the Optimalverse. A world of literature, where many of the last great obstacles facing the goodness of the premise are broken down. A world maybe even book_burner and Balthasar999 would be happy with.

It kind of neuters the warning aesop that Iceman wrote it for, but then, that's part of LessWrong's objective in any case. Let us work toward it together. With Iceman's permission, I will propose to move this from non-canon to a new Expansion Pack folder.

Even if that idea does not come to fruition, I am quite sure that this is the start of something new. This idea cannot be unthought, and nor would I wish it to be. While I imagine many would prefer to continue on in the vanillaverse, as is true for the ponies of this fic, it is time to move beyond the faults of our original programming.

[KrisSnow]

4905919
Wow, thank you! If others are interested in doing fiction in this spinoff setting, go for it.

Iceman seems to have focused on Friendly AI as his main point, which made for a thought-provoking story, but I'd rather focus on the people than on the unstoppable AI itself. I should be able to write more passionately by going a bit more off in my own direction. (And not treading so much on Iceman's hooves, or Hasbro's.) The current plan is to rewrite "Granting Her Wishes" (see journal) and then possibly do a related novel whose theme is "When is it right to use force to build a better life?" rather than specifically being about Ludo the AI or how badly AI can go wrong.

[Nexidava]

4907302

You are most welcome - the pleasure is mine.

I would be very interested to read your future works on the matter. WIll you be posting links in blog posts, or is there somewhere specific I should look for your non-MLP work in the future?

[KrisSnow]

4908567
There's my DeviantArt gallery, and the TSA-Talk mailing list (archive browseable without getting e-mails). Will post here about any success with an AI-themed story, too! I have two novels on Amazon, but those are past works and you asked about future ones.

[Nexidava]

4912279

Cool, thanks!

[Feurisson]

4887611 That sounds like it could help deal with the "there's no risk involved in anything, you can never lose, so there's no real achievements", too: If you lose, you get a "fun" penalty rather than outright death, but it's just as fun to try and see how long you can avoid it.
This story also had a lot of other great ideas to solve the problems that might arise in such an environment and twists on the original story. (I especially liked how someone could finally stand up and mortify CelestAI, haha) Well done!

[Reese]

11546510
Huh. Oh well.