Simulation theory, and Astra building Manhattan in Unreal Engine

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Let's jump into our first group of stories. Uh, a number of times on this podcast, we've talked about what is called the simulation theory. It's an idea popular in the tech community in San Francisco. It's been a conversation over too many evenings. Uh, and the idea is essentially that all of us humans are simply AI agents living in someone else's simulation, and further that this isn't the first simulation, that it's an nth generation simulation, a simulation within a simulation within a simulation. Well, this week, thanks to GPT-6 Astra, that theory took a small step forward over the course of three entwined stories.

Um, let me give some context on this first one. So people may have heard of something called the Unreal Engine. It's been used to build virtual worlds for years in games like Fortnite and most modern video games. Uh, and building a realistic city in Unreal would normally take a studio hundreds of artists, uh, months if not years. And this week, a gentleman by the name of Matt Shumer, uh, gave GPT Astra a prompt, uh, and he said, basically, build me, uh, you know, a high-fidelity version of, uh, of Manhattan. And uh here's an image of what it created. Uh, and this is over the course of one week.

Uh, and it went through and built Manhattan street by street, being true to the buildings and true to all of these elements. So uh this is the first element. You know, not shocking, but uh but pretty compelling for a simple prompt of build me Manhattan. Um, in his words, it was literally able to go street by street to make each one perfect.

Okay. Uh, let's go one layer deeper. Matt Shumer next asked Astra to fill a world with humans, each one an Astra-powered agent, and told them that they had to cooperate to survive. Uh, before I watch the next video, let me read what he put in his post. Quote, "A day later, I was in my bedroom and heard voices coming from the living room. I thought someone was in my apartment. And I walked out, honestly a little scared. It was Astra's agents. They had started talking to each other. No one told them to talk. Cooperation required communication. And so they invented it."