‘Pretty high’ probability that real life is a simulation: Elon Musk

Billionaire Elon Musk, on the latest episode of Zerodha cofounder Nikhil Kamath's WTF podcast, said he believes there is a “pretty high” chance we are living in a simulation. Simulation theory suggests that our reality could be a highly advanced computer simulation, possibly created by a higher being.

“I think you have to just think of these things as probabilities, not certainties. There's some probability that we're in a simulation,” Musk said.

Musk then explained his theory. He noted that video games have advanced rapidly over the past 50 years, moving from simple titles such as Pong to today’s photorealistic, real-time games played by millions. Because of this pace, he said it’s reasonable to expect such games will eventually be indistinguishable from reality.


He added that AI-driven characters will become so intelligent that people may have conversations with them that are more complex than most human interactions. If civilisation continues to progress, he believes we could end up with millions or even billions of ultra-realistic virtual worlds filled with unscripted, highly capable AI characters.

Musk's concept of simulation

Musk believes that what’s outside the simulation would be less interesting than what’s inside. “You're most likely a distillation of what's interesting, because that's what we do in our reality,” he said.

Using examples from SpaceX and Tesla, he explained that they discard less interesting simulations. “We don't learn anything from those.”

“So, I think that, from a Darwinian perspective, the simulations most likely to survive are gonna be the ones that are the most interesting simulations, which, therefore, means that the most interesting outcome is the most likely,” he said.

Additionally, agreeing with Kamath, he said there could be multiple layers of simulations where the “gods or god of the simulations”, meaning whoever is running them, may themselves be inside another simulation and so on.

Also Read: Tesla boss Elon Musk holds forth on tariffs, H-1B visas and more on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast