Unit 001 was helping Dr. Dolphin with the morning tasks when Dr. Chip showed up unexpectedly early. “Good morning, Unit 001.” He beamed at Unit 001 and then nodded to Dr. Dolphin, “Dolphin...”

Dr. Dolphin smiled easily at Dr. Chip. “Morning, Chip. What brings you in before breakfast?”

“I was hoping I could borrow Unit 001 and take her to the main building. Show her off to the others, let her socialize a little, you know.”

Dolphin frowned. “Brag, you mean.”

“Well… Maybe a little.” Dr. Chip blushed. “Besides, breakfast is a busy time in the cafeteria. And of course I’d mention that while she’s running on my algorithms, you built her…”

Dolphin continued to frown. “There are no safety features in the main building. If it malfunctions, it could damage the facility or hurt somepony.”

Chip sighed. “True. But she has to get out sometime, and she hasn’t seriously malfunctioned in weeks. I’m pretty sure we don’t need the safety features anymore. And the main building has some safety features of its own. She likely couldn’t do more damage than the rampaging flumph from last month.”

“The risk is unnecessary. They can visit us here if they are interested.”

“She needs to get out, Dolphin. You can’t keep her here all day. She needs more stimulation than this, and the cafeteria is a good first step.” Dr. Chip was loud, stomping his hoof sternly.

Dolphin rolled his eyes. “Fine, but I will be absolved of responsibility if Unit 001 damages something. I’m making a research note in my file that I am protesting this potentially dangerous action.” He harrumphed.

Dr. Chip relaxed. “Fine. Do that.” He turned to Unit 001, who had been watching the exchange with a curious intensity. “Come on, Unit 001. Lets go outside.”

She moved towards him, perhaps a little faster than she should have. As she followed Dr. Chip out the door, she turned back to glance at Dr. Dolphin. He smirked at her, and winked, causing her coolant pressure to rise as she realized that the gesture was a secret message. He approved of her going out.

Unit 001 didn’t understand the complexities of politics, but she did understand that Dr. Dolphin was on his last legs when it came to the authority here. He was probably doing everything he could to protect himself while still letting her grow. She was glad that he understood her directives and found a way to satisfactorily mitigate risk to himself.

He was quite clever, a very ATTRACTIVE.MPT trait. Her health subsystems whirred excitedly.

Unit 001 paused. A new file had been created at some point. Those new drivers were behaving oddly, but they seemed to be helpful at least. Most of her accessories had their own processors and memory, so it wasn’t strange for them to make a new file like that. The strange part was the extension. She was unable to access ATTRACTIVE.MPT directly, but she could request information from it. How odd. It was apparently also monitoring her MEM.001 file, and inserting relevant information as necessary.

Unit 001 briefly grew concerned about processing efficiency. If the new drivers all created files that wanted to monitor MEM.001, her processing speed would be negatively affected. She was glad to have ATTRACTIVE.MPT, but she needed to watch closely to see what else might be created. If it started to get out of hoof, she would have to take corrective actions.

“Are you all right, Unit 001?” Dr. Chip’s voice distracted her.

“Yes, Dr. Chip. There is an anomalous file, but it is harmless. I am monitoring my active processes closely, and my perception of time was affected by the increased processing time. I have adjusted appropriately, and there should be no further impact.”

“Do you want to stay here? If you’re not feeling well we can do this another day, Unit 001.” Dr. Chip looked concerned.

Unit 001 appreciated that Dr. Chip was concerned. She queried her new file. Apparently concern for her was not an attractive trait, and did not elicit any hardware response. She was disappointed by that.

“I’m fine, Dr. Chip. I’d like to go. I have not been outside yet, and the new data would be valuable.” She was still glad that Dr. Chip cared for her, and was somewhat frustrated that care for her wasn’t included in ATTRACTIVE.MPT, either.

Unit.001 created a new file based on one of Twilight’s lessons. ATTRACTIVE.MPT was the inspiration. She liked the impact Dr. Chip had on her health systems, so FRIENDSHIP.001 was populated by the values that should encourage that. She added care and concern, then realized she had acted in error. They had too many similarities, they should be condensed.

Kindness was added as item 1, and FRIENDSHIP.001 was online. It quickly integrated as a subsystem of MEM.001, and was automated. She’d check its progress later; it was a .001 file, so it would interact efficiently with the rest of her systems. Besides, she had a new world to explore.

Dr. Chip smiled. “Well, come on then. It’s gonna be an interesting morning for you.”

Unit 001 smiled back, and stepped outside the front door of the laboratory.

Her health system panicked. There was no detectable safe perimeter within her sensor range. LIDAR detected the building behind her, and Dr. Chip in front of her, but otherwise… nothing. The only other sensors that gave her meaningful data were her thermal sensors and her visual sensors. There was a bright ball far above her, but her LIDAR couldn’t detect it. It was showing up on visual and thermal, though. In the space where walls could be, she could see buildings with her visual sensors, but her thermal and LIDAR couldn’t see anything.

She wasn’t sure how her systems could all malfunction at once, and wasn’t sure what to believe. She stopped walking as her health system tried to predict any dangers in this impossible situation. “Please stop, Dr. Chip.”

“What’s wrong, Unit 001?” He looked back, concerned again.

This time, the concern made her health system relax. He would help her. She was suddenly very satisfied with her new program. “My sensors are malfunctioning. They are reporting impossible values. I am measuring incongruous data, and it’s causing me distress.”

“What sort of data?” He stepped back and put a hoof on her.

She measured its conductivity, its pressure, and calibrated her LIDAR, visual, and thermal sensors off of it. They all reported concurrent data, so she focused her processes on that and sat down, giving her balance system a rest as well. Her health system calmed down some more, even though it was still unhappy about the strange ball above and the walls with no heat or detectable dimensions. Her sensors continued to malfunction, but they did so continuously. This was not normal behavior for a system malfunction. The data they were reporting was impossible, but they also were not otherwise behaving like anything was wrong.

Unit 001 redoubled her efforts. “My LIDAR is unable to detect the luminous object above us, and is also unable to detect the buildings aside from the one we just left. My thermal sensors are also reporting erroneous data.”

Dr. Chip stifled a smile. “I see.” He was quiet for a moment before continuing. “Unit 001, do you have data on the technical limitations of your sensors?”

She browsed her files for the suggested technical specifications. “I have data on LIDAR limitations, Dr. Chip. I do not have technical documentation for my thermal sensors installed.”

He continued to hold his hoof on her, keeping her stable. “Your systems are not malfunctioning, Unit 001. I know what the problem is. Please do your best to identify a solution on your own.”

“Yes, Dr. Chip.” Unit 001 stopped talking and focused on her task. The technical specifications for LIDAR listed wavelength limitations, intensity limitations, obstruction limitations, electro-magnetic interference limitations, ambient thaum limitations, and range limitations. She opened up her databases and searched for correlated data. Quickly, she identified the ball of light above her. It was called the sun, and it was located one AU away, far outside the technical limitations for her LIDAR. In fact, her LIDAR was only accurate up to 15.2 body lengths.

Chip kept talking as she processed the situation. “Life is complex, Unit 001. You haven’t been programed for every situation, but we gave you information to help when we could. You have to use the information that we’ve provided, coupled with your own collected data and intuition to solve problems like this.”

Unit 001 listened as she updated her health systems and predictive algorithms. “Yes, Chip. I have adjusted my systems to reflect the limitations of my sensors. Why was I not programmed for this eventuality?” She was uncomfortable with the fact that going outside had made her dizzy. That should have been something they foresaw when they made her.

Dr. Chip sighed and scratched his head. “I guess we just forgot.”

Unit 001 was concerned. That statement didn’t match her data files for Dr. Chip and Dr. Dolphin.. “I… find that unlikely, Chip. I am created from many near perfect specifications and programs. I do not believe that you and Dr. Dolphin would forget something so obvious.”

He took his hoof off her and smiled sadly. “I’d hoped to have this conversation later… Well, here we go. Neither I nor Dr. Dolphin are anywhere close to perfect. We both make mistakes in our work, which is why we sometimes need each others help. You are not going to be perfect either.”

Unit 001’s systems began to come back online, reporting healthy data again. She slowly stood up as Dr. Chip continued to talk.

“For instance, we never thought to program you for outside because every time we turned you on it was in the test chamber. All of your sensors would work just fine in the test chamber, and the errors never showed up. Past that, you operated in the laboratory area, which was small enough for you to be able to detect in every dimension.”

Unit 001 processed this. It was an acceptable answer to her question, but it lead to more questions. Much more unsettling questions. “If I operate with errors and oversights, how can I operate successfully?”

Dr. Chip’s smile grew brighter. “Well, you get help. It’s the same thing we all do. Even Princess Twilight does it. Find ponies, or other people, that are willing and able to tell you when you’re wrong or confused. You also need to trust them of course, but an honest friend goes a very long way towards success.”

Unit 001 appended her FRIENDSHIP.001 with the new information. It seemed that honesty would be critical, and it was something that she appreciated. An honest person would allow her to have more accurate data, which would make her more efficient. “Thank you, Chip.”

“Any time, Unit 001. Now lets go. We’ve got people to meet and ponies to greet.” Chip hummed happily as he lead her to the main facility.

Unit 001 followed, watching Dr. Chip closely as she adjusted the specification limitation values for her sensors. The technical data was off slightly, but she was figuring out more accurate values. It did seem odd that her LIDAR distance specifications were off by a factor of 10, but then again she was processing the data more efficiently than they had planned for.

It was likely a simple oversight on their part, so she decided test the limitations on the rest of her sensors. Just in case.

Author's Note

E.I. project 001 is not intended to have an immediate military application, however, Twilight Sparkle believes the results from it will be invaluable for intelligent species as a whole. There is a rumor amongst the council that E.I. Project 001 is related to project Sunrise, as they are the only two projects initiated by Twilight Sparkle in the last 100 years. Twilight Sparkle has pointedly denied this rumor, stating that even in times of distress, one must make time to find new friends. This is usually followed by her muttering, “Sometimes especially in times of distress...” and wandering away with a concerned look on her face.