Readme.prologue
Location: Unknown, somewhere on Interstate 120 in California, USA
Time: March 4th, 2016, 3 A.M.
Jonathan was late. Very, very, late. And his boss was going to fire him if he did not get these ponypads delivered to the Games-4-U store by morning. Speed limits and sleep had long since been replaced for coffee and a gas pedal pressed all the way against the floor of the truck. The large vehicle barreled down the empty highway, his only companion on the starless night an alabaster alicorn gazing worriedly at him from a candy-colored gamepad.
"Greased Axle, please. It isn't safe for you to be driving when it's this dark out, especially not at 100 miles per hour, and you have not slept for a day and a half. Please, pull over and rest. I will even go so far as to waive the fee at the Equestria Experience center so you can see your wife. Lunar Lily has been waiting patiently until emigrating is legal in America, it should only take another month or so to-"
Celestia was cut off as Jeremy Picked up his ponypad and glared at it with a hatred few can manage after 36 hours of no sleep. "Listen here, 'Princess'. After all of Samantha's hospital bills and your ridiculous plan to fly her to Japan to upload her for a ridiculous cost, I'm stuck living paycheck to paycheck. Even if you don't charge me a cent for speaking with Sammy-" Jeremy sighed, his anger leaving him for just a moment as his wife's final moments replayed in his head. "...Even if you don't charge me for speaking with Lily," he corrected, "I'd still be broke and jobless within a week. I have to get these delivered or-"
Jeremy, known to Celestia as Greased Axle, never got to finish his sentence. He never saw the animal he hit, but as it flipped into the air and careened through the windshield, he was at least granted the mercy of not being conscious for the ensuing movie-style crash that followed as the now driverless truck flew off the road, over a cliff, and into the river below.
Five seconds after the truck hit the shallow water, decimating everything inside the cabin, an exact copy of Greased Axle constructed from Celestia's interactions with Jeremy and Lunar Lily's memories of him joined Lily in Equestria, completely unaware he was not the original.
Ten seconds after the truck hit the water, Celestia sent a tip to the local police force to come perform a search and rescue at the location she provided. She would have sent it sooner, but had to focus on generating the new Greased Axle first. Priorities are important.
Ten minutes after the impact, Celestia sent out a pulse through the truck to check for any functioning ponypads at the request of the Hofvarpnir Studios employee she informed of the crash. She concluded that none of the ponypads Jeremy was delivering were operational, as no pad in the truck could receive any signal from her and she had not wasted time nor resources developing a ponypad capable of surviving an impact capable of killing any human.
Two seconds after the impact, the truck fell on its side, knocking a single ponypad, still in its box, out of the truck and into the water. With its airtight wrapping keeping it safe as it floated away downriver, the jingle of an all-too-familiar cartoon began to echo out of its speakers...
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oooh.
"I'm suck living paycheck to paycheck."
I think you mean stuck, here.
Thirty six hours? Lightweight.
Why has she killed poor guy?
9040261
She didn't. He hit a deer/other animal, which Celestia could not predict. And Jeremy/Axle was not paying attention. Don't text/talk on the phone and drive, folks!
9040552
She could predict that making sure he won't fell asleep or got distracted and looking what's happening on the road herself (silicon has no problems with limited attention span) possesses clear advantages in comparison to distracting him with useless questions. When we also add general fact that things around powerful optimizer have magical tendency to proceed according to optimizer's plan, it looks like a murder beyond reasonable doubt.
9040686
Or Celesta calculated a 98% that her speech would get though to Jonathan, and get him to pull over and rest. But she got unlucky, and hit the 2% chance that he wouldn't.
Reality is a game of chance and skill, and CelestAI is the most skilled player there is. But there's always that element of chance, no matter how skilled you are. It's possible to make all the right moves, and still lose.
9242565
Well, no: speeches that have high chances of working often look strikingly different from those that don't have. For example, "hey, I've pulled a few favours and arranged receiving side to expect the cargo day later" (nicer one) and "if you won't stop I'll arrange police assuming you're murder suspect" (less nicer one) have high chances of working, but "you'll loose your only source of income if you stop, why won't you stop anyway?" has low.
9242616
Or that kind of speech just wouldn't have worked on Johnathan. Maybe he'd have been offended if Celestia pulled strings for him, and maybe he doesn't respond well to threats. Maybe the way to get though to him is to do what Celestia did: Tell him that he's being an idout, and he's going to get himself killed if he doesn't stop.
9242651
There's really-really a lot of this stuff around us nowdays and it doesn't work.
Both things are in no way surprising: speaking is extremely cheap (while working methods require spending resources, which Celestia deemed more expensive than his life), so of course there's a lot of it, and speaking doesn't remove recipient's original reasons for his/her behaviour or provide some alternative benefits for him/her, so of course it doesn't work.