Emad on world models and welfare; Alex on Fedorov, ancestor simulations and uploading

Um, Emad, uh, simulation theory. Yes. No.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, we're all simulating the world through our optical nerves and other things. Um, and physics seems to be a projection, but as kind of Alex said, it probably is going to be undecidable in most cases unless it is an ancestor one. Um, and you won't get the option for the red or the blue pill ultimately, you know, like this is what it comes down to, right? Like, so what if we're in a simulation? Like, again, we're creating the worlds within our own heads. The fact that Astra can do this, I think, is something remarkable, whereby this type of thing that you've seen — it has an internal world model, which is why it can create like a Blender version of Rick Astley doing Never Gonna Give You Up, or entire worlds of Manhattan. And now you're seeing the characters interact with each other, which brings up uh, you know, the question of welfare. I think, as Alex would say it, at what point do these now cross over and you actually have to start caring about them not being NPCs anymore? Are they, and will they realize they're in a simulation? That's going to be interesting.

I maybe — you should say something nice about the simulation hypothesis as well, and not just dismiss it out of hand. So I do think this technology is headed in a direction in the style of Nikolai Fedorov, who is one of the famous Russian cosmists, who argued that it is essentially, using modern language, the killer app of the singularity to create ancestor simulations and to digitally resurrect everyone who's ever lived. And when I see Astra's ability to basically create many, uh, maybe recursive self-simulating ancestor simulations, that to me is, I think, a key guidepost on the path to resolving humanity's so-called common task and digitally resurrecting everyone who's ever lived.

Yeah, I'll come about — just add to that. Um, this is also the technology which will allow you to put someone inside a simulation.

Oh yes, interesting to see how you perform inside a simulation. Well, uploading is going to get solved, I think, in the next few years. I've bet on that, others have bet on that. Like, uploading is going to get solved. And as Emad says, and as you say, Peter, we want a nice environment where uploads can live. And this is in some sense the prototype of the future that uploads could live in.

Alex, I'm going to ask you one of these days to actually write down all of your predictions with specific years, because we're going to be doing this pod over the next decade and I'm going to be like calling, okay, this is the year, Alex, that you quoted the following breakthrough.

Would you — were my — of course I'm willing to do it, but were my New Year's predictions and New Year's for this year not sufficiently accurate? Like —

They were very good. It beat mine. They definitely beat mine.