Elon Musk: "We Are Most Likely Living In Someone Else's Video Game"

[minibois]

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX says there is a high chance that we are actually living in someone's else's videogame.

Quote

Musk expressed this idea at this year's Recode Code Conference, saying that there's a "one in billions" chance that we're actually living in reality.

"The strongest argument for us being in a simulation probably is the following. Forty years ago we had pong. Like two rectangles and a dot.  That was what games were," he explained. "Now, forty years later, we have photorealistic, 3-D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it's getting better every year. Soon we'll have virtual reality, augmented reality."

 

Musk added that given the rate of improvement of technology in video games, people will eventually not be able to tell the difference between the games and reality, even if the rate drops by a thousand from the current rate, further suggesting how much it will improve 10,000 years from now.

 

"So given that we're clearly on a trajectory to have games that are distinguishable from reality, and those games could be on any set-top box or on a PC or whatever, and there would probably be billions of such computers or set-top boxes, it would seem to follow that the odds that we're in base reality is one in billions," he said.

 

Musk's argument is similar to that of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, who wrote about his views on the chance of us actually living in reality in a paper titled "Are You in a Computer Simulation?" Bostrom is among Silicon Valley's favorite philosophers, and he is well known for his research into existential risk.

 

The Code Conference follows almost six months after Musk announced the creation of the non-profit organization OpenAI with other tech giants in order to research how to make sure artificial intelligence benefits humanity instead of turning on us and creating a future like the ones seen in "Terminator" and "X-Men: Days of Future Past." The fear of AI wiping out humanity is a common concern among tech experts like Musk, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates, and Bostrom even covers the subject in his latest book, "Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies."

 

Musk also said at the conference that we should hope that our "one in billions" chance of not living in a simulation is accurate.

"Arguably we should hope that that's true, because if civilization stops advancing, that may be due to some calamitous event that erases civilization. So maybe we should be hopeful this is a simulation, because otherwise we are going to create simulations indistinguishable from reality or civilization ceases to exist. We're unlikely to go into some multi-million year stasis," he said before challenging anyone to find a flaw in his argument.

Sources: 

http://www.hngn.com/articles/200052/20160602/elon-musk-living-someone-elses-video-game.htm

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-ai-artificial-intelligence-computer-simulation-gaming-virtual-reality-a7060941.html

 

I thought this was an interesting read and have thought about this a lot as well (not saying I believe it though, just saying I don't think it's nonsense)

Way back in the day, a friend of mine and me always theorized about if we might just live in a The Sims or SimCity like game. Or if you are just the NPC's in a modern videogame. 

 

Going back to this quote:

"So given that we're clearly on a trajectory to have games that are distinguishable from reality, and those games could be on any set-top box or on a PC or whatever, and there would probably be billions of such computers or set-top boxes, it would seem to follow that the odds that we're in base reality is one in billions,"

He's saying games and technology have evolved a lot over the past 38 or so years of gaming and it doesn't seem to stop. What if the actual humans (or whatever is playing these games) are in a reality which is 10.000 years in the future from what we have now, can it be that we are living in their hyper realistic (simulation) games?

Maybe we are seen as their Civilization video game..

 

What do you think, is this stupid? Interesting? Something to think about for a bit? Something you would want to make conspiracy theories about?

It does come back to the meaning of life. If we are just living in a videogame, what are we suppose to do? If most of us are just NPC's, are we just here to be here? Or are we suppose to do something, can we become the next superhero in the world (of a videogame)?

[PlayStation 2]

This is about as plausible as us being some alien's science project: it's not plausible.

[Commander Llama]

Well yeah, aren't we God's video game? Hmm, I think it stopped playing though... From the state of the world we're probably something kinda average, like The Sims 3.

[Sauron]

The Matrix came out 17 years ago. I like Musk but honestly this wasn't his brightest moment. Also, we can't and probably never will be able to simulate actual thought - and if we could, at that point we'd pretty much have created life.

[othertomperson]

I want the PC that can simulate the whole universe to the quantum level, not to mention over 7 billion sentient beings, and render stereoscopic 3D with this much precision, lack of latency and what seems to be obscene levels of Ambient Occlusion and Anti-aliasing.

 

What are you playing at, Intel, AMD and Nvidia? Get your fucking acts together!

 

Edit: I say "lack of latency". But ultimately, isn't that what the Speed of Light, and therefore both theories of relativity, essentially come down to? Maybe there's more to this than I thought.

[LeapFrogMasterRace]

I don't trust a guy named B.O sorry

[DocSwag]

I have thought before, and what if we are all just part of a giant computer program? What if, say, some people were capable of creating a computer so powerful it could simulate an entire universe, and they were able to create a computer program capable of artificial intelligence? What if? After all, some things in this world are super strange... Quantum mechanics itself is really weird, not to mention stuff it suggests such as that stuff like the electromagnetic force is caused by virtual photons being spontaneously created, and that the smaller they are the less far they can travel because they defy the laws of physics less. And I haven't even gone into the stuff about stuff being in two places at once.

 

EDIT: And then if that is true, what if we also create a computer powerful enough to simulate the universe? Would that mean that then we would be able to check if we are in a computer program, because if our computer is powerful enough to simulate a universe and we are in a simulation then would our simulation take up so much power from the computer simulating us that everything would slow down and lag and weird things would happen? Or maybe it would just slow down and we wouldn't even notice since the whole universe would slow down....

 

I hope I haven't made anyone go like this with all this....

[Aytex]

omg top kek

[awesomeness10120]

We're in a simulation, in a simulation, in a simulation, in a simulation, in a simulation, IN A SIMULATION!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GoodBytes]

So that means, in the perspective of our computers....

 

[minibois]

5 minutes ago, Sauron said:

The Matrix came out 17 years ago. I like Musk but honestly this wasn't his brightest moment. Also, we can't and probably never will be able to simulate actual thought - and if we could, at that point we'd pretty much have created life.

People in the comments of the Indepent.co.uk article are also saying stuff like this. Elon Musk at this point is a rich inventor who surrounded himself by people who look up to him and probably don't want to be blunt with firing down the things he says.

I do think it's an interesting thing to talk about (even if the Matrix has already addressed this). With the recent (well, last decade's) rise in robot and AI technology it seems to be plausible that we can create 'human thoughts'..

 

[pagani123]

7 minutes ago, Sauron said:

The Matrix came out 17 years ago. I like Musk but honestly this wasn't his brightest moment. Also, we can't and probably never will be able to simulate actual thought - and if we could, at that point we'd pretty much have created life.

I agree its not his brightest moment but he does live in California and i know he gets anxiety giving public talks, you never know what he has been smoking beforehand. 

[Tech_Dreamer]

Don't go that way musk! it's a trap!

[othertomperson]

In all seriousness, the computer simulation idea is the most sensible explanation for the Big Bang that I've come across. It's the time the "go" button was pressed, which is why it doesn't make sense to talk about "time" before that point.

[Briggsy]

His argument comes from the idea that the ultimate goal of the human race is to be immortal. The fastest way to immortality is to digitize ones mind permanently into a simulation. Because all things in the universe are cyclical, he is arguing that the odds of us being in the first cycle before the chain begins is a billion to one. Most of this meta stuff goes over most peoples heads anyway, so he would be doing himself a favor by not feeding the trolls who can't separate a mathematical probability from reality.

[minibois]

4 minutes ago, othertomperson said:

In all seriousness, the computer simulation idea is the most sensible explanation for the Big Bang that I've come across. It's the time the "go" button was pressed, which is why it doesn't make sense to talk about "time" before that point.

Yeah, that's true. Didn't think about that one. In that case the whole "the universe came out of nowhere" thing would make sense. It was just a code that spawned the big bang, which in turn spawned the first life, etc. etc.

 

[othertomperson]

1 minute ago, Minibois said:

Yeah, that's true. Didn't think about that one. In that case the whole "the universe came out of nowhere" thing would make sense. It was just a code that spawned the big bang, which in turn spawned the first life, etc. etc.

 

Well the Big Bang theory doesn't actually say that "the universe came from nowhere", it only says that at one point around 14 billion years ago all of the matter in the universe was converged on a single point. Whatever may have come before, science offers literally no explanation. No one has a clue.

[PlayStation 2]

12 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

So that means, in the perspective of our computers....

 

some state of the art CGI there

yes I'm aware it's about as old as veggietales

[Master Disaster]

There's actually a theory that's being considered by the theoretical physicists that reality is just a holographic image. Its true... 

 

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/there-is-growing-evidence-that-our-universe-is-a-giant-hologram

[DocSwag]

This thread is gonna be interesting. I like tech and whatnot but I'm a science guy too and physics interests me.

[othertomperson]

1 minute ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

some state of the art CGI there

yes I'm aware it's about as old as veggietales

It's less old than Toy Story. It's supposed to look like an old videogame

[WereCat]

So we are simulation within simulation within simulation...etc.

Rich people in our simulation are basically people from the simulation above ours that preordered into this simulation and the ability to be rich was basically pre-order exclusive bonus. Other people have to grind.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

So we are simulation within simulation within simulation...etc.

Rich people in our simulation are basically people from the simulation above ours that preordered into this simulation and the ability to be rich was basically pre-order exclusive bonus. Other people have to grind.

Don't post things like that, the last thing we want to do is confirm this batshit theory

[vanished]

This has been thought of before.  And think about this: our universe has a (albeit ever expanding) finite size, an age, and a resolution, both spatial and temporal

[Virtual01]

For anyone interested in the topic, go watch a movie called The 13th Floor. Pretty cool sci-fi flick that deals with this exact idea.

 

This is one of the most interesting ideas ever IMO. Assume for a second that what Elon Musk said is true, that we are living in a highly advanced simulation. This introduces a lot of questions. Who are the higher beings? Probability dictates that they too are in a simulation. Do they know? Is this simulation a perfect recreation of their universe, or did they introduce limitations for the sake of simplicity? I think it's fair to say that any such simulation can only be as good as the world it exists in, IE we can't create a simulation and add extra shit physics-wise. If we did it wouldn't be a true simulation.

 

Was the simulation rigged such that intelligent life would be 100% likely to develop? If not, how many tries did it take? Do we exist in the "first run?" Are we even the target of the simulation? What if it's being run by aliens who don't give a shit about Earth or it's people. What happens when we reach the level where making our own, equally good simulation is possible? Does this imply that we are 100% sure that we exist in such a simulation? Does this imply that we have the technology to "escape"? Will the higher beings reveal themselves when we get to this point? Will we be able to contact them? What if they deem their simulation a failure? Do we all cease to exist? Do we start over from a restore point?

 

I love this stuff, you can think about it all day.