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Nick Bostrom is a philosopher at University of Oxford and the director of the Future of Humanity Institute. He has worked on fascinating and important ideas in existential risks, simulation hypothesis, human enhancement ethics, and the risks of superintelligent AI systems, including in his book Superintelligence. I can see talking to Nick multiple times on this podcast, many hours each time, but we have to start somewhere.

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Let me ask, 1 of the popularizers, you said there's many through this, when you look at sort of the last few years of the simulation hypothesis, just like you said, it comes up every once in a while, some new community discovers it and so on.

But I would say 1 of the biggest popular artists of this idea is Elon Musk.

Do you have any kind of intuition about what Elon thinks about when he thinks about simulation?

Is it all the things we've talked about or is there some special kind of intuition about simulation that he has?

I mean, you might have a better, I think, I mean, why it's of interest, I think it's like, seems fairly obvious why, to the extent that 1 think the argument is credible, why it would be of interest.

It would, if it's correct, tell us something very important about the world in 1 way or the other, whichever of the 3 alternatives for a simulation that seems like arguably 1 of the most fundamental discoveries, right?

Now, interestingly, in the case of someone like Elon, so there's like the standard arguments for why you might want to take the simulation hypothesis seriously, the simulation argument, right?

In the case that if you are actually Elon Musk, let us say, there's a kind of an additional reason in that what are the chances you would be Elon Musk?

Like, It seems like maybe there would be more interest in simulating the lives of very unusual and remarkable people.

So if you consider not just simulations where all of human history or the whole of human civilization are simulated, but also other kinds of simulations which only include some subset of people.

Like in those simulations that only include a subset, it might be more likely that that would include subsets of people with unusually interesting or consequential lives.

you're Elon Musk, You gotta wonder, right?

Or if you're Donald Trump, or if you're Bill Gates, or you're some particularly distinctive character, you might think that that adds, I mean, if you just think of yourself into the shoes, right, it's gotta be like an extra reason to think.

So on a scale of like Farmer in Peru to Elon Musk, the more you get towards the Elon Musk, the higher the probability.

You'd imagine that would be some extra boost from that.

So he also asked the question of what he would ask an AGI saying, the question being, what's outside the simulation?

Do you think about the answer to this question, if we are living in a simulation, what is outside the simulation?

Yeah, I mean, I think It connects to the question of what's inside the simulation in that if you had views about the creatures of the simulation, it might help you make predictions about what kind of simulation it is, what might happen, what happens after the simulation, if there is some after, but also like the kind of setup.

So these 2 questions would be quite closely intertwined.

it would be very surprising to like, is the stuff inside the simulation, is it possible for it to be fundamentally different than the stuff outside?

Like another way to put it, can the creatures inside the simulation be smart enough to even understand or have the cognitive capabilities or any kind of information processing capabilities enough to understand the mechanism that created them?

I mean, it's a level of, it's kind of, There are levels of explanation, like degrees to which you can understand.

So does your dog understand what it is to be human?

Well, it's got some idea, like humans are these physical objects that move around and do things.

And a normal human would have a deeper understanding of what it is to be a human.

And maybe some very experienced psychologist or great novelist might understand a little bit more about what it is to be human.

And maybe superintelligence could see right through your soul.

So similarly, I do think that we are quite limited in our ability to understand all of the relevant aspects of the larger context that we exist in.

I think we understand some aspects of it, but how much good is that?

If there's 1 key aspect that changes the significance of all the other aspects.

So we understand maybe 7 out of 10 key insights that you need.

But the answer actually varies completely depending on what number 8, 9 and 10 insight is.

Suppose that the big task were to guess whether a certain number was odd or even, like a 10-digit number.

And if it's even, the best thing for you to do in life is to go north.

And if it's odd, the best thing for you is to go south.

Now we are in a situation where maybe through our science and philosophy, we figured out what the first 7 digits are.

Most of it we figured out, but We are clueless about what the last 3 digits are.

So we are still completely clueless about whether the number is odd or even, and therefore whether we should go north or go south.

I feel that's an analogy, but I feel we're somewhat in that predicament.

We've come maybe more than half of the way there to kind of fully understanding it, but the parts we are missing are plausibly ones that could completely change the overall upshot of the thing and including change our overall view about what the scheme of priorities should be or which strategic direction would make sense to pursue.

Yeah, I think your analogy of us being the dog trying to understand human beings is an entertaining 1 and probably correct.

The closer the understanding tends from the dog's viewpoint to us human psychologists' viewpoint the steps along the way there will have completely transformative ideas of what it means to be human.

So a dog has a very shallow understanding.

It's interesting to think that, to analogize that a dog's understanding of a human being is the same as our current understanding of the fundamental laws of physics in the universe.


Speaker 0: Let me ask, 1 of the popularizers, you said there's many through this, when you look at sort of the last few years of the simulation hypothesis, just like you said, it comes up every once in a while, some new community discovers it and so on. But I would say 1 of the biggest popular artists of this idea is Elon Musk. Do you have any kind of intuition about what Elon thinks about when he thinks about simulation? Why is this of such interest? Is it all the things we've talked about or is there some special kind of intuition about simulation that he has?

Speaker 1: I mean, you might have a better, I think, I mean, why it's of interest, I think it's like, seems fairly obvious why, to the extent that 1 think the argument is credible, why it would be of interest. It would, if it's correct, tell us something very important about the world in 1 way or the other, whichever of the 3 alternatives for a simulation that seems like arguably 1 of the most fundamental discoveries, right? Now, interestingly, in the case of someone like Elon, so there's like the standard arguments for why you might want to take the simulation hypothesis seriously, the simulation argument, right? In the case that if you are actually Elon Musk, let us say, there's a kind of an additional reason in that what are the chances you would be Elon Musk? Like, It seems like maybe there would be more interest in simulating the lives of very unusual and remarkable people.

So if you consider not just simulations where all of human history or the whole of human civilization are simulated, but also other kinds of simulations which only include some subset of people. Like in those simulations that only include a subset, it might be more likely that that would include subsets of people with unusually interesting or consequential lives. So if

Speaker 0: you're Elon Musk, You gotta wonder, right? It's more likely

Speaker 1: that you're an insurrection. Or if you're Donald Trump, or if you're Bill Gates, or you're some particularly distinctive character, you might think that that adds, I mean, if you just think of yourself into the shoes, right, it's gotta be like an extra reason to think. That's kind of.

Speaker 0: So interesting. So on a scale of like Farmer in Peru to Elon Musk, the more you get towards the Elon Musk, the higher the probability. You'd imagine that would be some extra boost from that. There's an extra boost. So he also asked the question of what he would ask an AGI saying, the question being, what's outside the simulation?

Do you think about the answer to this question, if we are living in a simulation, what is outside the simulation? So the programmer of the simulation?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think It connects to the question of what's inside the simulation in that if you had views about the creatures of the simulation, it might help you make predictions about what kind of simulation it is, what might happen, what happens after the simulation, if there is some after, but also like the kind of setup. So these 2 questions would be quite closely intertwined. But do you think

Speaker 0: it would be very surprising to like, is the stuff inside the simulation, is it possible for it to be fundamentally different than the stuff outside? Yeah. Like another way to put it, can the creatures inside the simulation be smart enough to even understand or have the cognitive capabilities or any kind of information processing capabilities enough to understand the mechanism that created them?

Speaker 1: I might understand some aspects of it. I mean, it's a level of, it's kind of, There are levels of explanation, like degrees to which you can understand. So does your dog understand what it is to be human? Well, it's got some idea, like humans are these physical objects that move around and do things. And a normal human would have a deeper understanding of what it is to be a human.

And maybe some very experienced psychologist or great novelist might understand a little bit more about what it is to be human. And maybe superintelligence could see right through your soul. So similarly, I do think that we are quite limited in our ability to understand all of the relevant aspects of the larger context that we exist in.

Speaker 0: But there might be hope

Speaker 1: for some. I think we understand some aspects of it, but how much good is that? If there's 1 key aspect that changes the significance of all the other aspects. So we understand maybe 7 out of 10 key insights that you need. But the answer actually varies completely depending on what number 8, 9 and 10 insight is.

It's like whether you wanna... Suppose that the big task were to guess whether a certain number was odd or even, like a 10-digit number. And if it's even, the best thing for you to do in life is to go north. And if it's odd, the best thing for you is to go south. Now we are in a situation where maybe through our science and philosophy, we figured out what the first 7 digits are.

So we have a lot of information, right? Most of it we figured out, but We are clueless about what the last 3 digits are. So we are still completely clueless about whether the number is odd or even, and therefore whether we should go north or go south. I feel that's an analogy, but I feel we're somewhat in that predicament. We know a lot about the universe.

We've come maybe more than half of the way there to kind of fully understanding it, but the parts we are missing are plausibly ones that could completely change the overall upshot of the thing and including change our overall view about what the scheme of priorities should be or which strategic direction would make sense to pursue.

Speaker 0: Yeah, I think your analogy of us being the dog trying to understand human beings is an entertaining 1 and probably correct. The closer the understanding tends from the dog's viewpoint to us human psychologists' viewpoint the steps along the way there will have completely transformative ideas of what it means to be human. So a dog has a very shallow understanding. It's interesting to think that, to analogize that a dog's understanding of a human being is the same as our current understanding of the fundamental laws of physics in the universe. You You

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Why is the Simulation Interesting to Elon Musk? (Nick Bostrom) | AI Podcast Clips