Video games offer many benefits over real life: particularly the ability to save your progress and take several goes at difficult challenges.
So you might see why humans might retreat from the world of pain and displeasure into a simulated reality where everything is safe, warm and beautiful.
Elon Musk has often suggested there’s a strong chance we’re living in a Matrix-style simulation right now.
Now he’s appeared at the gaming festival E3 to issue a warning about the fate facing humanity.
He was asked if humanity would reach this ‘singularity’ or ‘point where the simulation and the world is the same thing’.
First he appeared to joke about the possibility that we’re already living in the Matrix, saying ‘imagine if we were to reach such situation on, that would be crazy’ before rolling his eyes and laughing sardonically.
He then said: ‘If you assume any greater improvement in video games at all, then one of two things are gonna happen: “Civilization will end or games will be so realistic you can’t tell the difference between them and reality.’”
Musk added: ‘FYI, we could be somebody’s video game right now.’
This means the question we all have to consider is: ‘Whose avatar are you?’
Last year, Elon appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience where he also discussed his simulation predictions (and smoked a big spliff, although we can’t say whether the two are connected).
He said that a simulation would probably be much more exciting than dull reality.
‘Why would you make a simulation that’s boring? You’d make a simulation that’s way more interesting than base reality,’ he said.
Films and games are already a ‘distillation of what’s interesting about life,’ the billionaire added, so the ‘real’ reality outside the Matrix is likely to be pretty bland.
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