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ThePhilosophical Vol.53,No.2
Quarterly, April
2003
ISSNoo3-8g94
ByNICK BOSTROM
I arguethatat leastoneofthe
following (i) thehuman
is true:
propositions is very
species to
likely
become extinctbefore a 'posthuman'
reaching stage;(2) anyposthuman is extremely
civilization
toruna sgnficant
unlikely number ofsimulations
ofitsevolutionary (orvariations
history thereof);
(3) wearealmost certainly ina computer
living Itfollows
simulation. thatthere
thatthebelief is a
chance
signficant thatweshallonedaybecome posthumans whorunancestor-simulationsisfalse,
livingina simulation.
unlesswearecurrently I discusssomeconsequences
ofthisresult.
I. INTRODUCTION
in normalhumanwayswiththeirsimulatedenvironment, do notnoticeany
irregularities.The microscopicstructure of the insideof the Earth can be
safelyomitted.Distant astronomicalobjects can have highlycompressed
representations: verisimilitude need onlyextendto thenarrowband ofpro-
pertiesthatwe can observefromour planetor solar systemspacecraft.On
thesurfaceof Earth,macroscopicobjectsin inhabitedareas mayneed to be
continuouslysimulated,but microscopicphenomena could probablybe
filledin ad hoc.What you see throughan electronmicroscopeneeds to look
unsuspicious, but you usuallyhave no way of confirming itscoherencewith
unobservedpartsofthemicroscopicworld.Exceptionsarisewhenwe delib-
eratelydesignsystemsto harnessunobservedmicroscopicphenomenathat
operatein accordancewithknownprinciplesto get resultswe are able to
verifyindependently. The paradigmcase of thisis a computer.The simula-
tionmay therefore need to includecontinuousrepresentation of computers
down to the level of individuallogic elements.This presentsno problem,
sinceour currentcomputingpoweris negligiblebyposthumanstandards.
Moreover,a posthumansimulatorwould have enoughcomputingpower
to keep trackof the detailedbelief-states in all human brainsat all times.
Therefore, when it saw that a human was about to make an observationof
themicroscopicworld,itcould fillin sufficient detailin thesimulationin the
appropriate domain as and where needed. Should any erroroccur, the
directorcould edit the statesof any brainsthathave become aware of an
anomalybeforethisspoilsthe simulation.Alternatively, the directorcould
skipback a fewsecondsand rerunthesimulationso as to avoid theproblem.
It thus seems plausible that the main computationalcost in creating
simulations thatare indistinguishable fromphysicalrealityforhumanminds
in the simulationresidesin simulating organicbrainsdown to the neuronal
or sub-neuronallevel. As we build more and fastercomputers,the cost of
simulating our machinesmighteventually come to dominatethecostofsim-
ulatingnervoussystems. While it is notpossibleto get a veryexact estimate
of thecostof a realisticsimulationof humanhistory, we can use
as a estimate.9 As we -oI33-IO36
operations rough gain more experiencewithvirtual
reality,we shall get a bettergrasp of the computationalrequirements for
making such worlds appear realistic to their visitors.
But in any case, even if
the estimateis inaccurateby several ordersof magnitude,this does not
mattermuch formy argument.I notedthata roughapproximationof the
computationalpower of a planetary-mass computeris lo42operationsper
second, and that assumesonly alreadyknownnanotechnologicaldesigns,
whichare probablyfarfromoptimal.A singlesuchcomputercould simulate
9 IOO billionhumansx 50 years/humanx 30 millionsecs/yearx [o014, Iol7 operationsin
each humanbrainper second= [1033,Io36]operations.
C The EditorsofThePhilosophical
Quarterly,
2003
248 NICK BOSTROM
sim=
+H
(f)VH)
Writingfiforthe fractionof posthumancivilizationsthatare interestedin
runningancestor-simulations(or thatcontainat least some individualswho
are interestedin them and have sufficient resourcesto run a significant
numberof such simulations), and NI forthe average numberof ancestor-
simulations
runbysuchinterested we have
civilizations,
?Th
Editors
of Th Philosophicalarter,
F. fm=
(fif N) +i
Because of the immensecomputingpower ofposthumancivilizations, XNis
extremely large,as I pointedout in the previoussection.What (F) showsis
thatat leastoneofthefollowing threepropositionsmustbe true:
I. fp=O
2. fj-O
3. fsizr I
? The EditorsofThePhilosophical
Quarterly,
2003
ARE WE LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION? 251
VI. INTERPRETATION
VII. CONCLUSION
University
Oxford