Elon Musk is one of the few people who believe that humanity might be living inside a simulation. Akin to the film Matrix, this theory hints that we are perhaps living inside a digital world, controlled by some external force. In Musk’s recent interview with Nikhil Kamath, he doubled down on the reason why he feels we are in a simulation and revealed that he is not fond of playing GTA.
Musk was asked if there was any chance that we live in a ‘Matrix.’ The tech billionaire admitted that this might be the case. He said, “Probably pretty high [chances], I would say it’s pretty high.”
Elon Musk compares simulation to video games
To back his claim, Elon Musk drew comparisons from the world of video games. He pointed out that in half a century, video games had transformed completely. He explained, “It’s gone from very simple video games where you’ve got, like, Pong, you’ve got two rectangles in a square, just batting it back and forth, to photorealistic, real-time games with millions of people playing simultaneously.”
The Tesla CEO reckoned that if technology continued to advance at this rate, it wouldn’t be impossible to simulate complete civilisations. Musk added, “If that trend continues, video games will be indistinguishable from reality.”
In this case, Elon Musk claimed that within a billion years, a civilisation might be able to recreate complete worlds with intelligent characters. Perhaps one that we already live in. He stated, “So, the future, if civilisation continues, will be millions, maybe billions, of photorealistic, like, indistinguishable-from-reality video games with characters in those video games very deep.”
Elon Musk doesn’t like playing GTA
Musk was also asked about his time playing Grand Theft Auto. The tech billionaire confessed that he wasn’t a huge of the gaming franchise. He said, “I actually… I’ve only played a little bit of GTA ’cause I didn’t like the fact that…
Like, in GTA V, you literally can’t progress unless you kill the police.”
The Tesla CEO claimed that he was not someone who likes to kill non-playable characters (NPCs). He explained, “‘This doesn’t work for me.’
I actually don’t like killing the NPCs in the video games. That’s not my thing, you know?”
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