Scenarios4/9
The 2050 Server · Everyone on Earth, with only as many real minds as 2050’s computers can run.
A present-day Earth running on every computer humanity is on track to have in 2050, pooled into one machine. That’s enough for about 1.8 million real minds. The other 8.2 billion people are scripted, and you can’t tell which you are from the inside. Your odds of being one of the real minds are about 1 in 4,523.
Required computing power rough
1.8 × 1024 FLOPS
Our computers could run this between 2046 and 2055, if steady growth runs a fifth faster or slower (2050 at the central rate). The countdown ▸
All the chips humanity has ever made would be a small fraction of this.
Computer sizerough
1,800 × every computer on Earth
Servers, personal computers, phones and consoles added together.
Feasibility
Beyond all existing hardware
More than every computer on Earth combined.
Universe-computerstextbook
2.2 × 10-80
One universe-computer is every kilogram in the observable universe computing at Lloyd’s bound.
Power draw, Landauer floortextbook
5.2 kW
The thermodynamic minimum for flipping bits at room temperature. The best real hardware uses about five billion times more energy than that.
At the thermodynamic minimum, a wall socket would do.
On every computer on Earthrough
under a year per second
How long it takes, on a clock, to compute one second of simulation on all of humanity’s computers, ~1021 FLOPS.
A few months of all Earth’s computing for every simulated second.
World actually computedwild guess
3.0 × 10-10%
3.0 × 10-10% of the mass is watched by 1.8 million observers. The observation dial sets how much of the remainder is computed at the full floor.
- If you met a real mind, how would you know?
- Do we owe a scripted character the same care as a real mind?
- Who decides which few million minds are real?
- If you’re scripted, whose thoughts are these?
“Worked out a world of full minds among painted surfaces: 1.8 × 10^24 FLOPS.”
Instance report
PAINTED SURFACES, FULL MINDS
PAINTED SURFACES, FULL MINDS
Settings
ScaleEarth
Matter floorPainted set
LobbyReal and scripted minds
Inner lives8.2 billion · functional
Computed3.0 × 10^-10%
TimeLinear, live from 1996
Computing needed
1.8 × 1024 FLOPS
Computer size1,800 × every computer on Earth
Universe-computers2.2 × 10-80
FeasibilityBeyond all existing hardware
Judged, not measured
The author’s reading. None of these changes the computing total.
SufferingAs found
Free willGenuinely free
Utilitariandivided
Deontologicaldivided
Virtue ethicsleans for
Existentialistleans for
“Worked out a world of full minds among painted surfaces: 1.8 × 10^24 FLOPS.”
Two of these are rough and three are wild guesses, and each is tagged that way. Change any one dial and you get a different universe.
Matter computingrough
1.8 × 1019 FLOPS
Only surfaces are computed, and only where someone is looking. Anything unobserved is just a stored value.
Mind computingrough
1.8 × 1024 FLOPS
Sandberg & Bostrom 2008, level 4
1.8 million fully computed functional minds and 8.2 billion scripted ones. Your odds of being fully computed are about 1 in 4,523.
Inner liveswild guess
8.2 billion
1.8 million real minds, 8.2 billion scripted, 4.5 × 1020 animals as scenery.
Operations so farrough
1.7 × 1033
30 years on the clock, at 1.8 × 1024 per second.
History that is only storedrough
99.9999998%
Computing begins in 1996. 5.77 billion humans are present at the start, with preinstalled memories.