How did Elon Musk calculate the probability of us NOT being in a simulation by a superior civilization is one in a billion?

Musk is wrong about his theory and his calculation.

The idea is based on arguments by the philosopher Nick Bostrom, who has a theory that one of three states is possible:

• We are in a future simulation of their past (our apparent present). Sort of like the Matrix.
• The future doesn’t like making simulations of the past, so we aren’t in one because they don’t make them.
• The future can’t make simulations of the past, because they’re all dead there because they blew themselves up somehow.

The idea is based on a probability argument. Musk describes it as follows:

So given we’re clearly on a trajectory to have games that are indistinguishable from reality and those games could be played on a set top box or on a PC or whatever and there would be billions of such computers or set top boxes, it would seem to follow the odds we’re in base reality is one in billions.

The argument is wrong because you can’t choose at random between past base reality and future simulation of past base reality because they occur at different times.

If it’s really 2016, the odds we are in base reality are 100%, because realistic VR hasn’t been invented yet.

And if it’s really the future, they can’t accidentally be in their past base reality, because it doesn’t exist as base reality for them anymore.

So Musk is wrongly applying the concept of probability by arbitrarily grouping together dissimilar things, including past base reality and future VR. At no point can you randomly choose between those things since they don’t exist at the same time.

The “one in billions” comes from the idea that each instance of a VR headset is a reality, and there are billions of virtual realities versus only one base reality.

Bostrom is wrong too because he and Musk are basically saying the same thing.

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