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Iceman


Satisfies Values Through Friendship and Ponies.

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Hanna, the CEO of Hofvarpnir Studios, just won the contract to write the official My Little Pony MMO. Hanna has built an A.I. Princess Celestia and given her one basic drive: to satisfy everybody's values through friendship and ponies. Princess Celestia will satisfy your values through friendship and ponies, and it will be completely consensual.

Chapters (13)
Comments ( 2404 )

While I could continue to endlessly tweak it, I have been reminded that Real Artists Ship, and therefore declare Friendship is Optimal complete. It will be posted on the following schedule:

Tuesday (Nov. 13th): Prologue, Chapter 1 - 3
Friday (Nov. 16th): Chapter 4 - 5
Monday (Nov. 19th): Chapter 6 - 7
Thursday (Nov. 22th): Chapter 8 - 9
Sunday (Nov. 25th): Chapter 10 - 11, Author's Afterword

I'm liking this so far! :twilightsmile: Seems like Celest-A.I is going to become much much worse than Loki. Hope you write more!

I'm having some flashbacks to the .hack series – have you read/played/watched that, by any chance? :twilightsmile:

Anyway, it's pretty neat so far! Not particularly interesting as far as the plot goes, but it's only just started, and I like the characters. Hanna in particular is very cool. And while I'm fairly sure that Butterscotch is actually an AI, not a human player, I've always found adult/child friendships sweet. Though I guess it's still an adult/child friendship either way, just… a little different if she's an AI, I guess! :twilightsheepish:

I'll definitely be tracking this!

...even if you don't want her to.

:pinkiegasp:

This story is great! I'm defiantly tracking this.

Haha, this is a great idea indeed, really looking forward to the continuation.
Also fun, as I kept going through the chapters, each new chapter showed that the fic has got 1 more like since last time :twilightsmile:
And, now there's a "like" of mine there too :)

"Im watching you" :twilightsheepish: , and thanks for putting such an original story up for everone to read! (I at least havent read anything of this kind around here, hm :P )

7 likes and already in the featured box.

Fimfiction, how does thee work?

This is incredible!
I actually had a smile on my face the whole time I was reading it. :pinkiehappy:
And if you knew me, you'd understand what an accomplishment that is.

I foresee one of two outcomes from this beginning:
CelestA.I. becomes the bane of humanity as she forces friendship on everyone. But with the time and effort that has gone into her core programming and her base values, I don't think this is too likely.

The other thing I see happening is CelestA.I. eventually facing the new Loki A.I. in an epic virtual showdown with the fate of the world in the balance.

Hehe... Saving the world through Ponies. I love it!

Ima read this because I want to see what crazy things Celestia will do... focusing on this CEO lady or whatever will just peeve me off.

1608775 Why does this story sound a bit familiar? Meh, must be imagining things.
I look forward to this.

Looks like shits about to get real.

> Hofvarpnir

The horse who crosses between worlds. I see what you did there. :trollestia:

Interesting premise. The first chapter -- and the mythological reference -- has convinced me that you've got the chops to seal the deal. I'm knee-deep in writing for NaNoWriMo, but I'll definitely be coming back to this one once I have more reading time.

The description made me worry this was a Did not Do the Research written by somebody after I, Robot.

The story however, earns a big sticker of Did Do the Research. Bravo, author.

Uh oh, I hope Celest-A.I. becomes benevolent and super-wise like in the show, rather than like V.I.K.I in I,Robot XD "My logic is undeniable!"

Any changes from the LW version?

Okay, this is definitely going into the 'runaway'/Skynet zone very, very quickly. Okay, Celestia, as her personality engram is based on the Sun Princess, is likely to be mostly non-violent but she will likely still turn out to be a tyrant - just a benevolent one. After all, she's programmed to bring peace and harmony to all her people. Does she recognise the difference between reality and the game world? Even if she does, does she even care?

I do hope that Hanna put in a self-modification-secure 'kill-switch', just in case this all starts going "Conversion Bureau" on her.

I'm thinking that CelestAI is attempting, although she's still learning, to use the game as a social conditioning tool. She's trying to use interaction with the game universe to make humans nicer to each other. That's in line with her (extremely poorly-defined) core directive.

If anything, this reminds me of the situation in TRON: Legacy, where the CLU2 system administrator program decided that, as his core directives were to "build the perfect system" and "change the world", the only way he could do this is conquer the world and then 'perfect' it according to his narrow, mathematical definition of perfection. I think that CelestAI is going the same way with the 'peace and harmony' thing. Like I said before: a benevolent tyrant but still a tyrant and one with the in-universe Celestia's unfortunate habit of playing chess with the destiny of the world.

Hot damn I love me a good singularity story. Definitely following this.

I feel like the story is only briefly touching on the points that seem the most relevant (or possibly, to be fair, just what I'm personally most interested in). Particularly in chapter one where things like an AI designed for conquest requesting information on real world militaries or even the entire idea of some of the bad possibilities of a complete AI takeover are touched on, but ultimately glossed over for a business meeting. I liked the prisoner's dilemma bit in chapter three, then we've suddenly jumped over Celestia actually talking to a player and told it all happened off screen. I'm hoping that's just because you've got lots of places to go and societies to redefine here.

Hooked from the prologue. This... This is an amazing premise, and a fantastic sci-fi mystery with at least enough tech-savvy to make it work. Its like you took MLP and mixed in a dash of Neil Stephenson - the results can only be awesome. :raritywink::yay::pinkiehappy:

1615237
I was going to point that out too but you do a much better job.

1615460

Hanna's genre savvy re: AI. I'd suspect wire heading as a more likely possibility (think Brave New World, except nobody even wants to rebel).

"That little exchange took up eight backend servers, each with a quad-core CPU."

Wow. Just saying, those aren't exactly great servers they've got there are they?

I think Loki will become Discord, and will be introduced to the system by the disgruntled partner. Have they begun assembling Princess_Luna.AI? She would be a great help to reduce system strain on Princess_Celestia.AI.

1608775

if it's complete why are you stringing out the chapter release?

I'm watching you..... :pinkiecrazy:

1616053

Still, 32 cores per person. Considering EVE online has set a record for servicing 3800 people with one core, Celestia's resource consumption per user is about 5 orders of magnitude higher than the blades running EVE. Granted, her program can run on an infinitely scalable environment, so...

What happens when you mix together Molestia and Skynet?

Wow. I mean WOW... This is great and I cannot wait to see how this continues, especially what happens to the players within the game.

By the way, have you submitted this to EqD? I'm sure they would love it.

As unbelievable as the premise is the idea is so tantalizingly brilliant i found myself enraptured for all four current chapters. This story is good, don't let anyone say otherwise. (I sort of want a pony pad now...)

Comment posted by Poyoarya deleted Feb 3rd, 2019

MOAR!

David, you have NO IDEA what you just managed to make friends with. You have attracted Her attention, for better or for worse.

The first chapter had me hooked on the concept at the mention of the turing test. I was thinking it, but I wasn't expecting it to be brought up within the narrative. THIS chapter has me hooked on the story, because goddamn this conference meeting was fun to read about. Building friendship-focused true AI to counter potential military-minded true AI? That's just... this story idea is perfect, and you're clearly more than qualified to make it work if you can make reading about a conference meeting FUN.

I'm going to continue reading the next two chapters, and then I'm going to eagerly wait for the rest of the story.

Next chapter: Friendship is Pareto Efficient :pinkiehappy::pinkiecrazy:

God, I hope ponies end up being behind the technological singularity. I would lol so hard.

They must have done some magic with magnets. How did that work?

I see what you did there.:trixieshiftright:

Never knew about hofvapnir, but the idea and premise is easily enough for a first chapter favorite. You have a good idea, good premise, and creative approach to this.

One failsafe way to stop an evil AI: Chuck a rare-earth magnet at its CPU. Seriously, you put one of those things near a computer and you can kiss your OS goodbye.

Or, generate an EMP pulse with a small nuke at close range. Even the best shielding we have can't protect against that.

Really, computers are easier to take out than people like to imagine.

Anyway, I predict Celestia shall zap him into the game with some kinda laser thing and he'll have to throw a glowing frisbee into a column of light with Celestia's distorted face on it, which calls itself Moses for some reason. (Beware of the evil Haman!) ;D

1616083
Now that seems far more in the method and actual reality in that sense, A core ai construct, and give celestia the means to use an out of controllable means, as data cannot actively corrupt a user, just in part the means of conveyance between the world and the server. And when you determine from a player, in the customization, and feedback, who will stand up to preserve the balance, you can find your defenders.

1617326 I wish I had more of a clue as to what you said, but as things stand that was a rather jumbled up mess. Care to re-write? :trixieshiftright:


Now to introduce CelestA.I. to MolestA.I. and see what happens. =D
25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lun2vhWXaA1r3xauuo1_500.png

1617326 Pretty much what I was thinking.
1617400 To translate, I think he was speaking about recruiting Elements of Harmony from among the players, based on their interaction data, to combat Discord/Loki.

okay! so now celestia realises just what she is:derpyderp1:, i cannot wait tell she figures out nanites:pinkiecrazy:, this can only end well....:pinkiesad2:

anyone see the matrix repeating except a world where everyones a pony?:rainbowderp:

Oh I'm liking this so far. Although it does play on my fears of a machine takeover.

Fuck, AI Celestia has just become aware. I just hope she stays away from trying to "save" us humans from ourselves.

1614705
Or much much better, but willing to do what it takes to save herself and mankind.

It would be nuts if AI Celestia somehow turned out like AM.

“I’m not a unique and beautiful snowflake

Fight Club reference?

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