Are humans trapped in a simulation? Physicist suggests 'master AI' is controlling an 'advanced AI world'

The world is merely a simulation and doesn't exist, a researcher has claimed, pretty much similar to The Matrix series of movies. Physicists have often talked about how the world might not be real and is merely a movie playing on a large screen. Melvin Vopson, an associate professor in physics at the University of Portsmouth, has now said we are living in a simulation, and our every day lives carry hints about it.

Talking to Mail Online, he claimed that our reality is a Matrix-inspired creation that is being directed by a higher being. He says a "master AI" is controlling an "advanced AI world" we all chose to become characters in at birth.

"All these scenarios operate under the control of a master AI, created of course by a future iteration of our civilisation."

He suggests an eerie possibility where none of the humans are awake anymore and are instead "trapped in the simulated reality, controlled by the AI."

He puts forward three theories that might be at play here. Vopson says the first one is the Entertainment Theory, which suggests that the simulation is meant to keep us entertained. The Guinea Pig Theory is just like it sounds - humans are guinea pigs part of a larger experiment meant to solve a real-world problem. The third theory is the Near-Immortality Theory according to which we are living hundreds of lives back-to-back.

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While Vopson has based his three theories on "experimental and theoretical studies of applied and fundamental physics," he clarifies that there is no scientific research to back any of these theories. 

Vopson explains the three simulation theories

Talking about the first theory, the Entertainment Theory, Vopson says, that humans "created the simulation as a place of entertainment where we can choose to enter (at birth) and experience a whole new life with all the components of it."

The Guinea Pig Theory, he says, is aimed at solving a problem by running a simulation. He says, if we have a complex issue to solve, one that is "environmental, economic, energy crisis, wars", "the best way to solve it would be to run a simulation (or multiple parallel simulations), if that was possible. If one of the simulations throws up a possible solution, it can be implemented in the base reality, he added.

The Near-Immortality Theory says the real world moves at a much faster pace than what we go through in our reality. A minute in the base reality might equal to 100 years in the simulation, and humans this way have over 52 million lives in a simulation.

Elon Musk has also often said that the world might be a mere simulation, triggering a debate among the people over the fascinating topic.