Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, thinks it’s again time to consider whether or not we all live in a simulation. He took to this year’s Code Conference to voice his opinions on why it’s completely possible that everyone is in a fake reality that is controlled by a more advanced civilization — just like one big video game.
We’ve all heard this before from theorists and fiction movies, so what makes Elon’s ideas different? Let’s let him explain his thought process because it’s a little much to take in.
“The strongest argument for us being in a simulation is the following: 40 years ago, we had Pong. Two rectangles and a dot. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic 3D with millions playing simultaneously. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, even if that rate of advancement drops by 1000 from what it is now.
It’s a given that we’re clearly on a trajectory that we’re going to have games that are indistinguishable from reality. It would seem to follow that the odds that we’re in base reality is 1 in millions.”
–Elon Musk
Seems Elon had put quite a bit of thought into this before the question came up in the conference. We can all agree it’s possible that one day we will have video games that will be completely and unutterably just like reality, but is that day already upon us? Our advancements in VR technology could be considered close, but it’s not indistinguishable.
It seems like a big jump to say that we could be unknowingly living in a simulation just because video games have gotten better over the years. Especially since we haven’t yet created video games that are identical to reality. The logic is a little hard to follow, Elon Musk. But we suppose it’s at least possible that reality is just one big version of The Sims.
You can watch the full Code Conference interview to hear more from Elon Musk and his theories on simulation.
