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Comment by planteen | Hacker News Reader

Mr Musk spoke earlier this year about the fact that he believes that the chance that we are not living in a computer simulation is "one in billions". He said that he had come to that conclusion after a chat in a hot tub, where it was pointed out that computing technology has advanced so quickly that at some point in the future it will become indistinguishable from real life – and, if it does, there’s no reason to think that it hasn’t done already and that that’s what we are currently living through.

The hubris of making such statement after a hot tub chat when no evidence exists is insane. In 1880, everyone with interest in Arctic exploration "knew" that the north pole was an open sea and would be balmy. I wonder what things we "know" today will be laughed at by our great grandchildren?

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Generally agree, but I think that by 1880 the British had finally come to their senses and given up on Arctic exploration. Franklin's expedition [0] was 1845 - 1848 or so, and the subsequent extensive searches for him into the 1850s provided a lot more knowledge of the geography, but they seem to have also made everyone finally confront the futility of the task. The British Admiralty didn't fund another expedition until 1875-1876 when the Nares expedition to reach the North Pole failed [1], and the general conclusion was that there was no Open Polar Sea. They gave up on Arctic exploration after that.

So maybe shift 1880 back to 1840.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Arctic_Expedition

EDIT: formatting

The Jeannete expedition of 1878 was the last expecting an open polar sea, at least according to Hampton Sides's book In the Kingdom of Ice. The expedition's captain met with world-renowned cartographer and open polar sea advocate August Petermann before leaving. While they were en route, it was discovered that the Kuroshio current was nowhere near as strong as anticipated.

Thanks for the reference, I'll have to find a copy.

Listen to one of the original talk/interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZgBcRhGPqs

He said (quote) "What are the odds that we are actually in base reality". This statement is made after expressing a philosophical argument contemplating the idea that if humans make increasingly convincing simulations then .... "What are the odds that we are actually in base reality". He never said we are living in a computer simulation, he just infers it by pulling a statistical number out of a hat ("billions") and then lets the audience/public believe whatever they wanted.

The initial quote "What are the odds that we are actually in base reality" is no different than saying "Human perception of the world is limited by our senses/biology/whatever". The only difference is the latter quote is (arguably) down-to-earth , boring, non-sensational and most of all - non controversial.

So then why be so dramatic ?

You could say Elons perspective is a "technical" packaging of a philosophical idea that has taken different forms, and his version is simply influenced by his career and role in the tech world.

I have a different perspective, my view is that the sensationalism and ideological theater is simply useful to keep investor and public interest. I think the theater around "AI as the greatest threat to humanity" has coalesced into a similar role. The only thing threatening about AI is that people are messy and will try to automate something dangerous and a bug will be in the software. The result is people will have hurt other people using technology. When it's stated like that ......the image of terminator robots goes out the window and the sensationalism is removed. :)

Scientists and engineers by default needed to disassociate from ideology when doing their work if they want good results, but many of them are perfectly content to play to the ideological assumptions of people (investors, the public , etc..) when it is useful.

I'm guessing he's done some research since then. Clearly I don't know, but he doesn't seem like the type of guy to blindly jump into something without investigating first.

I'm not sure. There have been numerous rich, powerful, and otherwise highly intelligent, rational people who became obsessed with peculiar ideas. At a certain point, without an effective feedback mechanism I believe most of us would fall prey to eccentric behavior. My personal favorite is that of Pythagoras's eccentricity. In his later life, he formed a religion. One of the central tenets was though shall eat no beans. One goal of his religion was to strive for inner peace. The bean, with its penchant for causing gastrointestinal distress, didn't simply represent, but was the manifestation of the antithesis of his world view. It was the harbinger of disorder and chaos. There's also a lot of funny, apocryphal tales of his death.

Musk's hero, Nikola Tesla, also had quite a few peculiar beliefs.

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