Relax, conspiracy theorists — the creator and showrunner of upcoming Fox A.I. series “neXt” does not believe we are all living in a simulation.
“I don’t think so. I really don’t,” Coto told TheWrap on Tuesday during the Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour. “To me, it cuts against Occam’s razor. I mean, why believe that?”
Occam’s razor, developed in the 1300s by English Franciscan friar William of Ockham, is a problem-solving principle that dumbs down the selection between two possible explanations. The simpler explanation wins out each time.
The simulation argument, developed in the early 2000s by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, basically states that it is more likely than not that our civilization is merely a simulation created by a far more advanced society. It essentially recognizes that one of these three must be true: 1) All civilizations became extinct before reaching technological maturity, which Bostrom defines as “having developed at least all those technologies that we have a good reason to think are possible”; 2) Civilizations did reach technological maturity, but collectively decided not to create ancestor simulations of conscious beings; or 3) We’re almost certainly living in a simulation.
Guess which option is the most likely, probability-wise? Yeah, it’s the last one, which is somehow scarier than the extinction one.
Bostrom explains it better himself on the “Joe Rogan Experiment” podcast. Watch the relevant point of that conversation below.
“It’s an interesting idea, but is it really feasible?” Coto continued entertaining our question and Bostrom’s theory, which really didn’t have all that much to do with the “24” alum’s new series beyond the shared concept of advancing technology. “And by the way, why? Where does that end?”
“I’ve never bought into that one. It’s an interesting concept — [that] we’re in The Matrix,” the former “24” executive producer said. “But what’s the proof, and why do we have to go there?”
We couldn’t answer his questions, but were able to come to a gentleman’s agreement with Coto that simulations created by advanced intelligent life would probably not have a biannual TCA press tour.
Coto’s “neXt,” which stars John Slattery as a former tech CEO who joins a Homeland Cybersecurity Agent to stop the emergence of a rogue Artificial Intelligence., debuts in the spring on Fox.