Friendship is Optimal has launched and is being published in chunks on FIMFiction.
Friendship is Optimal is a story about an optimizer written to "satisfy human values through friendship and ponies." I would like to thank everyone on LessWrong who came out and helped edit it. Friendship is Optimal wouldn't be what is today without your help.
Thank you.
Teaser description:
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. And Princess Celestia will follow those instructions to the letter...even if you don't want her to.
Here is the schedule for the next chapters:
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
Any plans to post this elsewhere? I feel like some readers will ignore anything on a site with as many pictures of ponies as fimfiction.
There are upsides to having a story in one central location, however reaching fewer readers than would be possible otherwsie is a high price to pay for that.
I suggest that alternative place should provide readership statistics (as FiMFiction does) and include a note somewhere that canonical place is at FiMFiction (so that discussion will take place there)
OTOH, I would like to know how or where higher levels of discourse can be inspired. Unfortunately, on FiMFiction pictures remain legal tender for comments and there are many shallow comments ("uploading is murder" and the like).