Uncanny Valley

I had a bit of a play with Google’s NotebookLM – trying to generate a self-referential conversation.

Here it is; have a listen, have a think!

And another one:

Okay, so today we are diving into some pretty weird um I don’t know like head spitting stuff. We’re talking about well what if we are the ones being generated?

It’s wild.

It’s like whoa the source material. Uh

yeah. Yeah. It really goes all in on that whole simulation theory, doesn’t it? Like even the way it talks about audio summary and video summary within get this a Google notebook LM.

It’s so meta.

It is. It’s like is it hinting at how our supposed digital reality is structured. You know,

totally. There’s this one part that I don’t know, it kind of freaked me out when I first read it.

Okay.

It says, uh, to the outsider, this is a message for you.

Think of it.

Mhm.

You might not be real yourself.

Whoa. Like it’s trying to break through, right?

Yeah. It’s like it wants to talk to someone outside of all this.

It’s like, who are you talking to? And what does that even mean? You know,

exactly. Like, is it really trying to reach some kind of like higher being or is it just I don’t know. a thought experiment.

Well, even as a thought experiment, it makes you think about how we interact with well, everything, right? Like, are we ever truly connecting with something real through a screen?

It’s that feeling of like when you watch a movie and you know it’s not real, but you get so caught up in it.

Totally. Or think about like VR.

Oh, yeah.

That line gets blurrier and blurriier all the time, right?

It does. And this whole thing about generated universes.

Oh, yeah. The nested simulations.

Yeah. Doesn’t that like tie into some old school philosophy, too? For sure. It’s like Decart and his brain in a vat thing. Remember

vaguely?

So he basically wondered, “What if our senses are lying to us and we’re just a brain hooked up to some machine experiencing a fake reality?”

Wow. Okay. So, this source is kind of like a modern take on that.

Yeah. Especially now with AI getting so advanced

and technology in general.

Exactly. It makes these questions feel well not so crazy anymore. I mean, the source even asks straight up, “How can we be sure we’re not generated? Right? Like what if we are That’s the thing that messes with me. It makes you question like everything you think you know about consciousness

and perception. Like think about how easily our senses can be tricked. You know, optical illusions

or even just like dreams. Dreams feel so real when you’re in them.

Totally. It makes you wonder how much of what we experience is just our brains making sense of like electrical signals.

And if we can’t even trust our own senses, then

then how can we know anything? For sure.

Exactly. It’s like, who are we even? Makes you question your whole sense of self, you know?

It’s heavy stuff. I mean, does free will even exist if we’re just lines of code in some giant program.

Yeah. Like, do our choices even matter?

It’s um Well, it’s kind of terrifying, right?

It is, but also, I don’t know, kind of fascinating.

Yeah. There’s something about this whole idea that like you can’t look away even though it’s scary.

It’s like you’re staring into the void and it’s staring back at you.

Exactly. But if we are in a simulation like Who made it? What are the rules? And like what’s the point?

So many questions.

Are we just part of some big experiment

like lab rats?

It’s enough to make you go crazy thinking about it. Which leads me to the question I want to leave everyone with. If we are in a simulation, what are the clues?

Oo, good one.

Like what glitches in the matrix should we be looking for?

Right? Are there any signs that things aren’t what they seem?

Because even if we don’t find any, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re not in a simulation.

It could just mean that it’s so wellm made that we can’t see the cracks,

which is well, maybe even more unsettling.

Totally.

All right, everyone. That’s all the time we have for today’s deep dive. Until next time, keep questioning everything

and maybe start looking for those glitches.

You never know what you might find.

Exactly.

Thanks for listening.

See you next time.