How Matrix Would Actually Work

The Reality of Matrix

I have been making games for Virtual Reality (VR) since 2017 (not to say I am a pro at this point, I actually started my game dev journey since 2016 but still). Just in few years of making games I learned couple of things about simulated worlds. 

Most of us get the picture of how Matrix would look like from the famous trilogy movie. The chance of Matrix being same as it was depicted in the movie is quite low. In the Matrix movie the way simulated world is depicted is incredibly inefficient and also impossible. 

Why is it inefficient? Simple answer to that would be, processing power. Imagine creating a computer who would be supporting billions of players at the same time with one to one physics simulation. That sound like a total nightmare to develop or even have enough computing power to support that kind of world. 

Why is it impossible? Lets just assume for a second some AI did actually manage to develop that kind of world which supports physics, weather, and ultra realistic graphics. See, by just reading that last sentence you realize how that kind of world is impossible to make. Anyways, lets assume we have the simulation, now we need a solid hardware to run it on. Not to mention that the simulated world has to be shared among seven to eight billion people, with real time updates. Oh and imagine when AI discovers it needs to make an update to the world and push some changes. Now all these eight billion people would be temporary offline so AI can make a 68 terabyte update. The amount of power it takes to run that hardware, supporting lives and providing them nutrition to keep people alive. The more you think about the idea of shared Matrix the more you realize its impossible to achieve.

So what kind of Matrix is actually possible? I am sure there are many ways AI could develop a simulated world but definitely not the way movie made us believe. One of the possible ways AI could make a simulated world would be no simulated world at all. Why bother? Why bother making a world or a super power hungry computer to let some creatures live in it? To harvest energy? There many known way AI could use harvest energy? To use us a battery? OK, well in that case keep everyone a sleep and use their body as a battery. The whole idea of making a simulated world just makes no sense what so ever.