When do you think we'll get the 1st life sim that's actually pretty close to real life?

Submitted by doingStufffff t3_11wee34 in Futurology

I'm not talking about the movie trope of putting on a headset and you are in the game feeling everything etc but something like the sims where you live in a town/map/world with 80-100 other simulated people, using AI which gives them personalities and can have conversations with the player. Also remember stuff that happens to them or that players do and they have real effects on the player's relationship with them or with other simulated people. You can use a keyboard or even a mic to communicate with them. The game literally simulates living in a small town.

Giving the current advances in the world of AI do you think we are close to something like this becoming a reality or do we still have a good 10 or so years before something that really works comes out?

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baddfingerz1968 t1_jcxnv6i wrote

Replying to doingStufffff (#2,278,092)

Good question. I am highly convinced it is too late, for this incarnation of homo sapiens on Terra, as evidenced by the Sixth Great Extinction and the Climate Holocaust we are fully engulfed in now. But maybe our life forces will get another chance on some other plane of time and space.

The Grand Experiment must go on.

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desi_guy11 t1_jcy1175 wrote

For some, it may be an immersive experience reality sooner than you think.... and those immersed in simulated may not even know it!

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Robot1me t1_jcy65ej wrote

One main factor would be the technological progress in GPU power and affordability. In the scenario you described, having a potent GPU for VR + owning a VR headset in the first place would matter (unless it's optional). The VR space has a bit of a cliche image with "gimmick games", even when there are quite a few AAA titles (e.g. Half-Life Alyx). But since most people do not own a VR headset, the big game developers out there do not focus on it.

The second factor would be, at which point lower end GPUs and even consoles would be realistically capable of running large language models. As such a simulation game would require vast amounts of VRAM and computation (for both the graphics and the AI model). Once that would be realistically feasible, this would then catch the interest of (bigger) studios. It might be even from a passionate indie developer at some point, thanks to the massive leap in research and open-sourcing (e.g. on Huggingface)

>do we still have a good 10 or so years before something that really works comes out?

Frankly it's tough to say, and take my opinion with a grain of salt. Personally I think that it will take (at minimum) another console generation. In order to see mainstream adaption and the possibility of such a true-to-detail game. There will be surely games who will attempt this at least, until one nails it perfectly.

But in theory, such a game could still happen at any point. Sites like Character.ai exist, so if such things are done on the serverside, it could happen way sooner. There would be then just more strings attached, such as always-online requirement and requiring a subscription for the GPU calculation costs.

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Skreame t1_jcybyr8 wrote

Replying to doingStufffff (#2,278,092)

His argument is more philosophical. Sort of depends as I would argue people are already doing this by living vicariously through social media and that would slightly warp the general idea of “real life”, but only marginally and not entirely.

As far as this being some conspiracy as an attack on our idealogy as free thinking humans, one might expect the next step to be some immersed first person virtuality to isolate us, when in practicality it could very well just be more algorithms dictating our sociological structure to a point of generic and superficial existence. No advancement in tech needed.

To answer your question more directly for what it actually is asking, advancement in processing speed for computing is still plateaued. You might have heard of the great advancement in the change to silicon chips. While this material was a major boon to processors, the capability eventually hits a maximum value. This capability was further boosted through technological advancements in transitors, but Moore’s law is also subject to physical limits, which we are nearing currently.

Silicon has theoretical replacements that are much more conductive, such as cubic boron arsenide, though the material itself still has the problem of being viably manufactured at all, let alone at scale, as opposed to silicon being one of the most abundant elements on Earth.

This basically means we are not getting any major leaps in processing power without a substantial discovery and there is no real time estimate for that to my knowledge.

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Test19s t1_jcyuq8r wrote

Replying to Robot1me (#2,279,237)

I think getting rid of/addressing our physical needs and worries is almost as important as how immersive the world superficially appears. It’s hard to make the most of an artificial universe if you starve to death or get a pandemic halfway through.

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UnifiedQuantumField t1_jcztj2z wrote

>something like the sims where you live in a town/map/world with 80-100 other simulated people, using AI which gives them personalities and can have conversations with the player.

I was thinking along the lines of an advance in interface technology. But you seem to be thinking more about advances in software?

  • So in terms of rendering/visual realism, there are some pretty big jumps that are happening right now (e.g. Unreal Engine 5)

  • In terms of creativity (if that's the right word?) we're also seeing some pretty big jumps in text to image software. It's reasonable to expect text to video will be progressing rapidly over the next few years as well.

  • Gaming was a major driving force behind big advances on processing power. Also reasonable to think it can be a major driving force in the development of AI's... especially if the scenario you suggested becomes super popular.

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Disastrous_Ball2542 t1_jd2alwl wrote

Lol 10 years... this is at least 100 years away from being economical and at scale where you could just buy one for using at home, if ever. Just think about how much energy and computing power would be required in the world for every household to have a super computer capable of processing a program indistinguishable from reality... this ain't happening any time soon or within 10 years

Plus who is the market for this? If someone wanted to escape reality this bad, they'd just do drugs... much cheaper and satisfying. Realism has diminishing returns for gamers, just coz a game is realistic doesn't make it fun, most gamers would rather a game be fun and well designed, not really care if they can live in a small town indistinguishable from reality unless they wanna escape their life so bad, in which case they're probably poor and cannot afford such a game

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Complete-Return3860 t1_jd7p1jt wrote

I think about this when I think about the holodeck on Star Trek. Who says to themselves "well that's enough scantily clad (or less) gorgeous people feeding me grapes while the London Symphony Orchestra and Van Halen plays whatever I tell them to play. Best get back to work."

You would have to drag me kicking and screaming from the holodeck.

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