In May of 2011, I was writing about “paper-clippers,” or AIs that want to optimize the universe along some metric that humans would think is absolutely worthless. I accidently typed “paper-clopper.” I thought this typo was hilarious. The idea of some AI that wanted to tile the universe with ponies stuck in my head, and I started work on this story soon after. I abandoned the original title, “The Paper Clopper,” after I learned what “clop” was slang for, which was for the best since it wasn’t a very good title.
Yep, them crazy ASIs be makin friendship
That’s exactly what inspired Friendship is Optimal, from the author’s afterword: