I bet that I can prove, given a few reasonable assumptions, that you are extremely likely to be an AI living in a simulated or otherwise artificially made reality. (This was not my idea originally but I think that the original hypothesis can be altered slightly).
The idea itself is rather simple. Given that a) there exists, will exist, or has existed a sentient species or individual with the technology to create simulated reality, b) said species or individual only uses a tiny fraction of their resources to create this simulation, c) said species or individual would want to create, and would in fact create, said realities in large numbers, and d) there are enough conscious minds in these realities that, when realities are created en masse, there are orders of magnitude more conscious minds in simulated realities than there are in true reality, then your conscious mind is more likely to be in a simulation than to be real. I will examine these premises one at a time.
A. There exists, will exist, or has existed a sentient species or individual with the technology to create simulated reality.
This particular premise seems the most obvious to me, but is apparently difficult for some people to come to grips with. I suggest reading the original argument for a detailed analysis of its plausibility. In it, the author Nick Bostrom gives a detailed analysis of the theoretical feasibility of having the computing power necessary to simulate reality. He comes to the conclusion that “a rough approximation of the computational power of a planetary-mass computer is 10^42 operations per second, and that assumes only already known nanotechnological designs, which are probably far from optimal. A single such a computer could simulate the entire mental history of humankind (call this an ancestor-simulation) by using less than one millionth of its processing power for one second.”
Whether or not this is true, I cannot say. I think of it this way: The universe is nearly infinite in size, relative to the scale of Earth. Similarly, the time scale we are talking about (which is “any time at all”) is nearly infinite. It can simply be said that, with nearly infinite space, nearly infinite resources, and nearly infinite time, basically anything can happen. It’s even possible that humankind will be able to develop this technology ourselves.
B: Said species or individual only uses a tiny fraction of their resources to create this simulation.
This statement is considered true for the same reasons given above. If the race can create simulated reality, it won’t be long before they can do it really easily. Eventually, it will be a trivial task (as stated above, using a suboptimal planetary computer, you could calculate the entire mental history of humankind one million times in a second). Basically, if you can swallow premise A, this one should follow without issue.
C: Said species or individual would want to create, and would in fact create, said realities in large numbers.
Okay, here we might get fuzzy. On one hand, who wouldn’t want to make a bunch of realities and play God? I sure would! I have a feeling that once we have the computing power to do this, we totally would make them all over the place. There are lots of reasons to do so: we could simulate our own evolution with slight variations to determine how it would alter the future, replay the development of humankind for entertainment purposes, or complete a totally different species to determine how they would survive. The realities would be good for research but they would also probably be a lot of fun. Think of it as the ultimate Sims.
On the other hand, though, I question the assumption that the society or individual would make a bunch of these realities (a bunch = more than 100,000, say) for the same reason that I don’t use my computer for running 100,000 instances of Nethack instead of playing Team Fortress 2: why bother with old technology? When your computing power vastly outstrips that which is required for simulations, why bother generating them (since you probably have something that needs even more computing power to do).
D: There are enough conscious minds in these realities that, when realities are created en masse, there are orders of magnitude more conscious minds in simulated realities than there are in true reality.
This premise goes without saying, and indeed, went without saying in Prof. Bostrom’s report: how many minds are in these simulated realities? If each only has one, well… um. Yeah. However, It is assumed that each created reality has a bunch of AIs in it (tens of billions or more): enough that the number of consciousnesses in the simulated realities dwarf the number of consciousnesses in the actual reality.
Conclusion: You’re In Another Reality?
If these four statements are true, the result is that you are probably in another reality! Since far more conscious minds exist within simulated realities than exist out of them, your conscious mind is far more likely to be in a simulated reality. Fun!
Look for future episodes in the “Computer Simulation” crazy train including recursive simulations, probability of technology, and maybe even some concrete proofs (though the original has some nice maths along these lines in Section IV).
[...] Simulation – Further Examination So, you are probably living in a computer simulation. Now [...]