HUMANKIND IS AN ADVANCED ALIEN SIMULATION, RESEARCHERS SAY

According to a theory that is starting to grow more and more popular, humankind is an advanced alien simulation. A number of scientists, including Elon Musk, believe that our known universe is just a very high-tech Sims game and our existence is dictated by alien gamers or scientists.

The theory that states that humankind is an advanced alien simulation is not quite new. It’s based on an idea that Rene Descartes had back in the 16th century. Of course, science was not very advanced back then, so the French philosopher theorized that his entire reality is being manipulated by an evil demon.

In present times, scientists, especially a person like genius billionaire philanthropist Elon Musk, have more influence than French philosophers. That gives them a lot of power, and the ability to convince people, via facts, that their theories are true.

Musk is known for his objections when it comes to artificial intelligence and its possible rise to power. However, the idea that humankind is an advanced alien simulation did not originate from him. The CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX was educated upon the matter by Nick Bostrom, a famous Oxford philosopher.

Back in 2003, Bostrom published his theory, organizing it in three main arguments.

1. The human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching ‘posthuman’ stage;
2. Any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);
3. We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

The second argument is the most compelling one. While it’s true that at least our species is interested in simulations (just think about the success of the Sims game), the events that happened billions of years ago are not that fascinating, from a video game point of view.

Just imagine how boring the single cell chapter of our existence would be. The dinosaurs are a nice touch, for the adventurous, imaginative gamer. Then the player changed, and they were wiped out in order to make place for a new, tech-savvy species. Of course, it took a couple of millions of years before the “characters” started doing interesting stuff.

Scientists don’t yet know if humankind is an advanced alien simulation or not. However, more and more respected members of the scientific community are cautioning engineers on the dangers of AI.

Source: councilchronicle.com