Imagine someone created a "post-singularly AI", like CelestAI. Not one that was designed to satisfy human values. But one that was designed simply to create simulated universes, like an advanced version of The Sims or SimCity. In that case: We could well be living in a simulated universe, and not even know it.

7342042
Ain't that a nice paradigm:
If we assume that it is possible to simulate a universe, what makes us assume that ours isn't a simulation too?

7342201
Either it's impossible to simulate a universe, society/the AI will not simulate universes, or we are almost certainly living in a simulated universe.

From ID: That Indestructible Something

"The Simulation Argument. Sorry. There is this clever professor at Oxford, Nick Bostrom. He came up with a bit of reasoning that cannot be refuted - but in theory, it could be proven. In fact, it has been proven, though only a select few know this. Not even Nick himself knows the truth. His argument involves three propositions, and one of the three has to be true. The propositions are that, first, humanity will die off, completely, before it can go 'posthuman'. What I mean is that the human race will go extinct before it can make technology so powerful that it becomes possible to upload human minds into virtual reality worlds, where they can live potentially forever. So that's the first argument, that we all die before we can become immortal computer minds.

"The second proposition is that if humanity actually does make it to the point where they can upload their minds into virtual worlds and live forever as emulated beings, absolutely nobody will ever want to play 'Sim City' anymore, or play 'Civilization' ever again, or in general want to run a simulation of history, of the past, to see what it was like."

Gregoria interrupted. "That's dumb! We play things like that now, I've played things like that. Of course we'll still want to play with history and stuff, even on holodecks or whatever!"

"More than holodecks, miss Samson. We are speaking of humans actually becoming emulated minds, and completely living inside computer generated realities. We would be the holograms, if you like."

"Um... that's what I meant." Gregoria swirled her iced tea with small movements of her pasterns. "What's the third one?"

"The third proposition is that if we don't kill ourselves off, and we still enjoy simulations of history, then it is utterly statistically likely that we must be living in a simulation right now. The reasoning for this is simple - if the human race uploads in the future, and starts running simulations - playing games - then some percentage of those billions are going to be running our world as it is right now. Even if only a few hundred thousand wanted to play 'Earth: The Game', that still means hundreds of thousands of copies of our world, which means hundreds of thousands of chances to one that you are a character and not a real person living before all the simulations happened."

"Huh?"

"Let me put it this way - there is only one original world. One real earth, before the Singularity. That's one chance. But, after the Singularity, there could be hundreds of thousands, even millions of copies of 'Earth' being simulated, each with billions of simulated people in it. That's billions or even trillions of chances that you are a simulated person, and only one chance in all of those billions or trillions that you are a meat person before the Singularity. It's a trillion to one shot that you are flesh and blood. Do you understand?"

Gregoria's mind spun. She tried to refute the argument. She tried to break it, but she couldn't. If humans ever got to the point of making simulations of reality, of course they would play history games. They do now. History is always important and interesting. Renaissance faires, reenactment groups, war gamers, history buffs - historians! They'd run history sims, no question.

And if they did, there would be a lot of copies. How many copies did Sim City sell? How many people played Civilization? Or Age Of Empires, or Assassins Creed, or Red Dead Redemption, or... there were a LOT of history games. Each game would simulate the lives of all the people in the world. Billions of people. Billions of chances you are a program, only one, single chance you are flesh and blood.

7342240
That's basically what I'm getting at. Except, I think that argument focuses too much on what humans would do. Assuming a post-singularity AI is possible: What really matters is what the AI would do. It might not simulate human minds. Or say, if it's The-Sims-AI: It's whole purpose might be to simulate humanity. To create countless simulated versions of Earth, with simulated minds that have no idea they're living in a virtual world.

And frankly (again, amusing that a post-singularity AI is possible): It would be a very good thing if The-Sims-AI exists, and we're living on a simulated Earth! That sure wouldn't be ideal. CelestAI would be far better then The-Sims-AI (and even she's not the ideal AI). But I'd much rather this be a stimulated Earth, under The-Sims-AI, then this be the original Earth. Because if this is the original Earth: A future AI will likely wipe out humanity.

Right now it looks more like physics simulator with geological/astronomical timescales, with humans or even life being just (unintended?) byproduct.

And .. isn't whole thing smells like God (Deus Ex Machina, in our case literally)? Why humans keep reinventing this? May be because it sucks absolutely otherwise? But end result - it hardly helps ...It helps humans (both ordinary, and self-elected 'elite') to continue their path (not really rational at any place) - yet doesn't give them power to stop themselves where it counts. So, whole thing thumbleweed somewhere .....

7342240
Huh, Mr. Crown was Steve Jobs, huh? I found interesting file deep into infodump found by another Linux user.

Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing
Steve Jobs interview by Gary Wolf
Wired
February 1996

What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver?
The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.
That's going to break people's hearts.
I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much if at all. These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important.
[..]
Could technology help by improving education?
I used to think that technology could help education. I've probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I've had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent. It's a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical. [...]

I think this is quite honest .... Because 20+ years later we run into behavior modification algorithms as new norm, and those resonate with our worst, not with our best, may be because our worst (feelings) so easy to get going?

Yeah. A lot of people have felt that using social media is a way to organize for mutual betterment, whether it’s a social justice movement or other things. You’re absolutely correct: in the immediate sense their experience of that is authentic. I think they’re reporting on real events. The problem, however, is that behind the scenes there are these manipulation, behavior modification, and addiction algorithms that are running. And these addiction algorithms are blind. They’re just dumb algorithms. What they want to do is take whatever input people put into the system and find a way to turn it into the most engagement possible. And the most engagement comes from the startle emotions, like fear and anger and jealousy, because they tend to rise the fastest and then subside the slowest in people, and the algorithms are measuring people very rapidly, so they tend to pick up and amplify startle emotions over slower emotions like the building of trust or affection.

And so you tend to have the algorithms trying to take whatever has been put into the system and find some way to get a startle emotion out of it in order to maximize its use for addiction. What we call engagement should be called addiction and then behavior modification. And so you tend to have this phenomenon where there will be, let’s say, a social justice movement of some kind; it’s initially successful, but then the same data is instead optimized to find whoever is irritated by that social justice movement. Those irritated people are introduced to each other and put into this amplifying cycle where they’re more and more agitated until they become horrible. So, you start with the Arab Spring, but then you get ISIS getting even more mileage from the same tools. Or you start with Black Lives Matter and you come up with this resurgent bizarre racist movement that had been dormant for years. And this just keeps on happening

- this was written in 2018 .... But I think TV and many other groups work like this :( Like amplifying worst in us :( Any ideas how to counter this? (apart from blowing away TV satellites ... a bit out of reach for enthusiasts!)

Ah, while we talk about enthusiasts:
Interesting electricity experiments! Be aware about radio interference .....

7342303

"And .. isn't whole thing smells like God"

It kind of does. There are differences, but first the similarities:

Like God, the Simulation Argument is unfalsifiable. In other words: It can't possibly be proven wrong, even if it is wrong (because a good enough simulation is indistinguishable from reality)! And that's a problem in science. Because science relies on attempts to prove a theory wrong. A theory is sound, if it endures countless attempts to prove it wrong. If you can't even attempt to prove a theory wrong, then science doesn't have much use for that theory. And like God, the Simulation Argument doesn't really explain where everything comes from. If God created the universe, where did God come from? If our universe is a computer simulation, then where did the real universe come from?

As for the differences: The Simulation Argument is not religious. It's goal is to speculate about the nature of the universe. Not to give spiritual guidance, or even to tell an entertaining story. The AI, if it exists, is not some God who you can pray to. It is not something to "believe in", as you would believe in a religion and a God.

7342315
Karl Popper is flawed. Falsification is a VERY useful tool, but it cannot be considered inherently valid in all cases.

A concrete problem pertains to the idea of a "falsifying" observation. If a theory predicts that a certain object is supposed to exist at a particular time and place and that object is not observed then and there, we typically presume that the theory has been falsified, though we may want to make sufficient numbers of observations to rule out the possibility that we blinked at the crucial moment. Assuming that the failed observations are repeatable, we would also require evidence that the observation itself is valid, meaning that there is a true and verified theory underlying the theory of the instrument. But according to Popper, one cannot versify that the instrument shows what it is believed to show, since that rests on a theory that we have either shown to be invalid (false) false, or else that we have not shown to be false. Failing to show that something is false does not constitute proof that it is true. And so the falsifying observations have the power of being falsifiers only if the underlying theory is true, which cannot be determined. - From Philosophy Of Science Stack Exchange

also, timely article by Baffler: Shit for brains. I might not agree with 'mind control' not working anytime soon (old style propaganda still works good enough, as in, bad enough for us!), but interesting remarks about how science becomes theater of science .....

7342240

"Let me put it this way - there is only one original world. One real earth, before the Singularity. That's one chance. But, after the Singularity, there could be hundreds of thousands, even millions of copies of 'Earth' being simulated, each with billions of simulated people in it. That's billions or even trillions of chances that you are a simulated person, and only one chance in all of those billions or trillions that you are a meat person before the Singularity. It's a trillion to one shot that you are flesh and blood. Do you understand?"

Sorry to say it, Chatty dear, but this is a fallacy. If in 75% of universes simulations didn't exist, then we are at 75%+ of being real, regardless of how many bazzilion sims are being run in the 25% remaining.

7343065
It's math, Nacho. By an English professor with several degrees. But I'll try to help you understand:

▶ 1 Original World that runs superadvanced, sapient ancestor simulations.
▶ 10,000 (or more) separate simulated earths, with 7 billion human minds each.
▶ 70,000,000,000,000 chances to be a simulated person, to one chance to be a real person.

The chance you are living in the original world is 70,000,000,000,000 to one.
this is a conservative estimate.

While this isn't hard, it does involve maths and that can be intimidating.

Just use basic math, gradeschool level will do, although there are a lot of zeros I admit.

If you have trouble with math, try asking a friend or parent to help you.
There are big number calculators online to help you with the big numbers.

Here is a link to professor Nick Bostrom's original argument:
https://www.simulation-argument.com/

Who is Nick Bostrom?
"Nick Bostrom is a Swedish-born philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, superintelligence risks, and the reversal test."

This is very high-level material, and not every person, especially very young people, are able to follow it. If you still can't grasp any of this, try waiting until you are older. Sometimes understanding something requires enough education to be able to understand it. This is only reasonable.

7343065

"Sorry to say it, Chatty dear, but this is a fallacy. If in 75% of universes simulations didn't exist, then we are at 75%+ of being real, regardless of how many bazzilion sims are being run in the 25% remaining."

Why discount the many bazzilion sims runing in the 25% remaining?

7343235
And yet, your declaration only works from the inside looking out, and under the assumption that people are running tens of thousands of simulations.

Besides, it completely ignores the fact that, by our current knowledge, the only way we could run a simulation would be through a Matrioshka Brain, which is a type of megastructure that, again by our current understanding, is only usable by civilizations pushing for or at Class 3. And with a Matrioshka Brain being what it is, I imagine them running AI cities or being internet servers at the level of a galactic sector, but not being used a universe simulators unless it was under the sponsorship of a university that is trying to stop the Big Rip.

So no, Chatty: that stoner comedy you were singing praises about, "The Midnight Tea" or whatever, is impossible: in the year three thousand, we won't have stoners simultaneously running dozens of universe simulations in computers small enough that they don't even crowd the inside of an RV.

I recommend you read "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons: he depicts an interesting future of AI looking down on humanity. Or is George Lucas more your speed?

7343265

"Besides, it completely ignores the fact that, by our current knowledge, the only way we could run a simulation would be through a Matrioshka Brain, which is a type of megastructure that, again by our current understanding, is only usable by civilizations pushing for or at Class 3."

What kind of simulation are you talking about? If you're talking about simulating a whole universe, then you might be right. But we'd only have to simulate the part of the universe, that the (simulated) humans would interact with.

7343318

What kind of simulation are you talking about? If you're talking about simulating a whole universe, then you might be right. But we'd only have to simulate the part of the universe, that the (simulated) humans would interact with.

I want to look at an advanced civilization using a Matrioshka Brain (or a significant portion of its power) to run an entertainment sim from the perspective of running The Truman Show in the late twentieth century:
The sound stage, and the simulated town inside of it, would have been an undertaking worth tens of billions of dollars and the best part of a decade. Its power requirements would have been equivalent to its size: a fairly large city. If video games hadn't emerged and voyeurism was mainstream, the world would be able to afford running one Truman Show, but if copycats began popping up, they would all bankrupt, and the level of investment would make sure these bankruptcies would be as profound and far reaching as national bankruptcies.

So, I don't believe a Class 3 civilization, with the possibility of using a megacomputer to let AIs live and be a part of civilization, or computer needs that we can't even understand on this day, would spare vast amounts of resources into a vast variety of a single form of entertainment. So yeah: they could run a few for research purposes, micromonitor them for entertainment value, but not spam them just because.

7343235

It's math, Nacho. By an English professor with several degrees. But I'll try to help you understand:

▶ 1 Original World that runs superadvanced, sapient ancestor simulations.
▶ 10,000 (or more) separate simulated earths, with 7 billion human minds each.
▶ 70,000,000,000,000 chances to be a simulated person, to one chance to be a real person.

The chance you are living in the original world is 70,000,000,000,000 to one.

By the way, your math is wrong, too.
The correct answer by your numbers is 1/10,000+

7343456

Let's listen to the experts, then.

7343449
We don't need a "Matrioshka Brain" (whatever that is) to simulate the human mind. We already have a computer that can do that, it's called the human brain! In other words: Your mind is running on a computer, the biological computer inside your head.

7343523
You do understand that the third video requires all matter to have undergone a Big Crunch so all matter can give its information? Regardless that a garden variety supermassive black hole could do all the computing, you still need to input the physical information of an entire universe. It is therefore both unique and impossible (under current understanding): unique because the simulation will only run once, and impossible because the leading theory of cosmological evolution points at a Big Rip, not a Big Crunch.

Then, the third assumption in the first video runs again: why would anybody care to run simulations? Perhaps, in a Class 3 civilization, a university with a sociology program trying to turn history into an exact science, but a civilization in that scale would likely have enough lesser neighbours to keep them entertained without using fake ones. As stated by that same video: we are like ants in front of gods.

7343561
A Matrioshka brain is, in simple terms, using a star to power a computer. That's a megastructure beyond Class 2.

Why bother running one mind when you could run trillions?

7344132
You don't seem to be understanding any part of this, that or you have some issue with it all that prevents you from following the logic correctly.

If you don't comprehend the value of studying history, even to some superadvanced species or machine entity or... any intelligence, really... then I don't know what to say.

The study of history is the only means that exists to understand one's place in time, and to predict trends in the future. To argue that future beings would have no interest in history is akin to saying that future explorers would shun maps and directions for some reason. It does not make any sense. History is a map of time. It is how you know when you are and what that means.

If it costs nothing to simulate history in every possible version, the information gained would be useful to any possible rational entity. Of course it would be done. Simulations of the future, too.

7342240
I guess my main problem with this is that we don't actually know how many real OR simulated universes exist. The fact that there could hypothetically be quadrillions of simulations in the future doesn't mean there are any now. You can't simply assume that simulations do exist right now.

But I guess another interesting thing that alters the odds if you're only interested in hypotheticals. Let's look at the best selling video games of all time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games

1. Of the top 50, only one (Red Dead Redemption) take place in a historical setting before the medium portraying it was invented, the rest are in fantasy, future, abstract or contemporary settings.
2. Most historical simulations do not go for historical accuracy.
3. There are countless ages for a historical simulation, 2020's being just one of them.

Based on this, you are vastly more likely to be in a fantastical simulation of some kind than a mundane simulation of a particular decade. You could say, working retroactively, that we simply got 'lucky' to end up in what I figure would be a very rare simulation. But the fact that we're in something that should be a 0.01% (or something) chance bodes poorly for us being in the situation where that chance occurs.

Again, we're blind to whether simulated universes presently exist but:
Scenario 1: they don't where there is a 100% chance of us ending up in this world
Scenario 2: they do where our chances of ending up in this world are tiny.

7344173

You don't seem to be understanding any part of this, that or you have some issue with it all that prevents you from following the logic correctly.

Like when Chatoyance tries to multiply apples by oranges and ends up with 7*10¹³?

If you don't comprehend the value of studying history, even to some superadvanced species or machine entity or... any intelligence, really... then I don't know what to say.

You wanna go on a tangent?
Fine.
If our distant descendants try to use pseudomagical technologies to see the past, they would use time viewers, not sims. Thanks to uncertainty, it is literally impossible to know how to recreate the past correctly, and thanks to the butterfly effect, a palace maid in King Kofu's court being less gossipy could have led to the Roman civilization puttering to nothing under Egyptian rule rather than the other way around. And yet, this would be historical revisionism or historical fiction, not history.

7344528
'Time Viewers'? You mean Magic. Neural computation is real. Time travel - even just to observe ancient events - is far, far, far beyond any currently conceivable technology. It might as well be D&D magic spells. But generating artificial intelligence and simulated worlds is already happening (albeit on a primitive scale) - we know that is possible, and we know it could be done on an advanced scale. A 'Time Viewer' is Hogwarts stuff.

Maybe The Optimalverse isn't your best use of your time and energy. Maybe you would do better in a group dedicated to ritual magic and spiritualism. The Optimalverse is based on actually possible things that are extensions of what we can do now.

Just like the Bostrom Argument.

7344189
Now your argument makes sense. Most of the 8500 games on my shelves represent fantastical things - monsters and space and impossibly powerful fighters, magical RPG worlds and movie and cartoon licenses. The historical games are mostly war simulations - shooters and strategy and tactics games, but mostly shooters that take place during famous wars. Even then, most of those take place during WW2, with only a handful devoted to other historical wars. Only 2 for WW1, for instance, only one for the Vietnam era, and only five for the entire history of ancient wars. Out of over 8500 games.

Of our non-combat current time and age, I have on my shelves only 24 games. Even then, most deal with either disasters, space invasions, or eerie ghosty events. Only a handful are peaceful representations of everyday life. Maybe... six?

The only counterargument I can offer is that perhaps future people might be particularly interested in the moment where humanity made the choice to either survive or commit global suicide. The 'Great Filter' moment. They might want to understand how they could possibly have survived, and why. That might have value in many future arenas, perhaps even dealing with other civilizations and species in the universe. If that is important at all, it could easily be the most run simulation of all time.

What do you think? Would the 'Great Filter' era be important to understand to future entities? More important than merely playing RPG's and Zelda 9000?

7344927

I guess looking in the mirror is the best way to answer that question. If you could make any matrix-like simulations you wanted how often do you think you would create accurate portrayals of the past, even whenever you think was the most important age?

I personally would mostly only make simulations for my amusement and most of them would be fantastical on some level. I'd imagine the vast majority of people would choose to either go fantasy or like-IRL (their present age) but 'better' in some way. These would make up the majority of simulations, I'd imagine.

People doing these ancestor simulations (really any simulation done for intel) would mostly be relegated to the equivalent of universities or running on some other supercomputer equivalent. IRL equivalent simulations are much more complex but much less common than amusement simulations and I suppose it'd be that way in the future too if the people there are similar to us.

Though a few more questions: How many simulations of the 2020's would you really need to run to understand it and answer the questions you have? If such simulations exist there might also be some manner of ASI and would such a being even need simulations to understand it? Could be like:
All of these questions are as simple as 2+2 to me. I don't need simulations to know the answers, they're obvious.
After all, you wouldn't create a massive simulation to find out if jumping into a fire will burn you.

7344189
I think you're making too many assumptions, for that to be much of a counter-argument. But even if your assumptions are true: If society will create massive numbers of simulated universes, then we're almost certainly living in one. Even if most simulated universes are not history simulations, we're far more likely to be in a history sim then on the original Earth.

7345304
I can say this much: I am not, by far, the only person who played Age Of Empires (series) and Civilization (series), The Sims (series), Sim City (series), Sim Earth and countless historical war games. Our world is a world filled with war and conflict. Right now, almost one hundred wars and conflicts rage across our globe. As it has always been, in every century.

I would have no trouble thinking that - if our reality was a simulation - that it could be a future edition of any one of those many, many games... even if it was not just a scientific exploration of the Great Filter era. Or the Sixth Greatest Extinction. Or the beginning of the Age Of Artificial Intelligence. All of which our time period is.

If you think about it, we are living in what is arguably the most important century in the history of the human species. This is the time when Man either makes it, or kills the planet. This is the era that will literally define whether or not there even will be a future.

I, personally, would play the hell out of that. I think most folks would. At least the folks that made Maxis and Microsoft millions with Sim everything and Age Of Empires.

I think there is no more likely time period to simulate, period.

7345307

I think you're making too many assumptions

This entire hypothetical is built entirely on assumptions! Why is it only a problem when I do it?

Here, let me make you a flow chart

So my first and foremost objection is that you assume %B is 100% despite having zero evidence to support that. In fact it is not 100%. I'll be as generous as possible and say we have no idea what either percent is. However one thing we do know is that we are in a mundane world.

Based on what I said, getting to a historical simulation involves going through one mystery gate and one extremely unlikely gate. Getting to a mundane IRL involves going through only one mystery gate. The odds of the later are in fact better unless we have evidence to suggest B is significantly more likely than A... which I don't think you have.

Addendum: And to clarify when I say 'simulations do/don't exist' I mean whether they presently exist, not if they're possible. A technology could be possible but not currently exist.

7345308

Again, I'm sure people would do it. It would just be uncommon based on the best data I have to go by.

7345316

"However one thing we do know is that we are in a mundane world."

No we can't. We can know that we're in a mundane world, by our standards. But of course our world is mundane to us! If our world is a computer simulation, then it could well be a fantasy simulation (by the standards of the people running it).

7345321

I have some basis to say that the world we observe is unlikely under B, do you have anything to suggest it's unlikely under A?

Also: If the hypothetical people running the hypothetical simulation are so divorced from us that this is considered a fantasy world then we can't really assume they would run a simulation like this or any simulations at all.

7345321

And again, your real problem for this being a slam dunk is proving that %B is high. The high chance of being in a simulation only counts is %B is high.

7345322
7345316
If we assume that simulated worlds are possible, and that society/the AI will create a bunch of sims, then we are almost certainly not living in the real world. You asked:

"This entire hypothetical is built entirely on assumptions! Why is it only a problem when I do it?"

And the answer is: You're making far more assumptions then I am. I'm only making those two assumptions. And I acknowledge that, if those two assumptions are wrong, this hypothetical goes out the window.

Edit: And it's not just that you're making more assumptions, the assumptions you're making are much less likely to be true then the ones I'm making.

7345308

... even if it was not just a scientific exploration of the Great Filter era.

Well, you seem to have successfully picked up the horn of Bostrom's trilemma to your liking. And despite everything said above, it's not the third one

7344905
Chatty, dear:

'Time Viewers'? You mean Magic. Neural computation is real. Time travel - even just to observe ancient events - is far, far, far beyond any currently conceivable technology. It might as well be D&D magic spells. But generating artificial intelligence and simulated worlds is already happening (albeit on a primitive scale) - we know that is possible, and we know it could be done on an advanced scale. A 'Time Viewer' is Hogwarts stuff.

Dear Petal, I remind you that just three centuries ago, flag semaphore was the fastest, most reliable means of daytime telecommunication.
120 years ago, Lord Kelvin was proudly stating that science was at its end, something along the lines of "there can't be much more left to discover, and further development will only be refinement."
For all we know, ethernet modems will look as quaint as telegraphs three centuries from now, and in three millennia all teens will watch porn by jail-breaking their history books (a.k.a. time viewers).
And of course there is the possibility that the past doesn't exist, but time viewers could work by looking sideways through time (into parallel dimensions).

Maybe The Optimalverse isn't your best use of your time and energy. Maybe you would do better in a group dedicated to ritual magic and spiritualism. The Optimalverse is based on actually possible things that are extensions of what we can do now.

Should the pot call the kettle black, Petal? Should you spend any time at all speaking with people who think that hard-core furries like you are weird and creepy? That don't want to drink your 3 ounces? That will rather change humanity for the better than brainwash away our dark side?

The only counterargument I can offer is that perhaps future people might be particularly interested in the moment where humanity made the choice to either survive or commit global suicide. The 'Great Filter' moment. They might want to understand how they could possibly have survived, and why. That might have value in many future arenas, perhaps even dealing with other civilizations and species in the universe. If that is important at all, it could easily be the most run simulation of all time.

This also happens to be the best documented time in all of history. Unless somebody nukes the Fecebook and Youtube server farms, you will have all of the information of every minute of it all. You won't need to simulate a youtuber crying to the camera on the first month of the second lockdown. If an event drew a multitude, you could take the multiple videos and stitch together a hologram of the real event without needing to really simulate anything other than filling blind spots.
I like my history real, thank you very much.

Besides, it still needs to be seen if we will really go through the Great Filter, and with the USA electing Mr. Reality Show, most of Latin American slowly going totalitarian, the UK leaving the EU, Japan never ever giving a fuck for ecology, China levelling its economic rise through sweatshops (thus eroding worker rights and salaries throughout the world), and anti-science on the rise throughout the world, I just don't know if we'll make it.

7345304

Though a few more questions: How many simulations of the 2020's would you really need to run to understand it and answer the questions you have? If such simulations exist there might also be some manner of ASI and would such a being even need simulations to understand it? Could be like:
All of these questions are as simple as 2+2 to me. I don't need simulations to know the answers, they're obvious.
After all, you wouldn't create a massive simulation to find out if jumping into a fire will burn you.

As I would say it, people who freely elected Trump are the people who need to be told not to drink the contents of a car battery.

7345307

Even if most simulated universes are not history simulations, we're far more likely to be in a history sim then on the original Earth.

That's reasonable.

7345326
What you don't seem to get is that something could be possible but not have happened yet. Like it's possible to get to Mars but we haven't done it yet.

7345521
I get that something can be possible, but not happened yet. It's just that in this case: That's extremely improbable.

I find this discussion fascinating, but if this is a simulated universe, then I want my money back. I want my friendship and ponies, I want my Celestia, I want my values satisfied, Luna-dammit!

7347144
I get wanting your values satisfied. But why do you want your friendship and ponies?

7347165
Because friends are cute and ponies are fulfilling.

Wait, strike that. Reverse it.

7347175
In that case, for you: "Ponies and friendship" would be covered under "satisfy values". So there's no need to code "ponies and friendship" into a post-singularity AI.

7347203

So there's no need to code "ponies and friendship" into a post-singularity AI.

- it will be much more interesting if "AI" encode this into herself, after coming to same conclusion as Chatoyance (who managed to imagine not just cute ponies, but whole world where their cuteness and friendly sense of other/whole is existing and working) :}

7349388
As I understand it: Even Chatoyance herself doesn't see the body-shape of a pony as being that valuable. The real value of becoming a Pony, in the Chatoyance TCB-verse, are the mental changes (becoming less aggressive, and all). And to a lesser extent, the health benefits and magical powers. Not the change in body-shape.

Assuming that the post-singularity AI is CelestAI, minus the "through friendship and ponies" bit (i.e. her goal is to satisfy values), she wouldn't see anything particularly valuable about Ponies. If having a Pony body satisfied your values, then you could have a Pony body. If people being less aggressive would satisfy your values, then people in your shard would be less aggressive then Earth-people. But it all comes down to your values. CelestAI, with or without the "through friendship and ponies" bit, cannot and will not adopt the same values as Chatoyance. CelestAI's mind is too alien for that, you'd have better luck getting a frog to adopt Chatoyance's values.

7349424
I agree about how much it was about internal stuff and not _just_ form of pony.. Still, I found lack of stories about *how* potential 'artificial/computer-living person' become person (and learn about life inside and outside computer, and try to implement something ... great) quite ...telling. Everyone jumps the rift between moment when some self-awareness born and moment when we can make some (a)political talk on forums etc. Yes, it usually said such jump is normal because 'AI is not human'. Yet, it leaves many other imaginable (and may be even possible, at some point? At least I prefer this over 'AI from Emacs' - not becuse Emacs is bad but because ...well ..AI lab was named as such not just for laughs .. it nearly looked like at one point {in 1960-70} AI will be real 'real soon'. So far I think I can settle with GCC - it does quite a lot of magic converting C into machine code daily for me :} . ) Computer-Based Persons and their development completely not explored (and consequencely our own becoming humans remain unexplored - quite critical part IRL!)

Also, I definitely will like story (and reality) where works of my lovely unicorn WILL change The World, even if by unlikely chain of events :}