u/AgentBlackVeil

Hey r/SimulationTheory,

(Note: Reached out to the mod team beforehand, and they gave me the green light to share this summary and link with you all!)  

I’m the creator and host of an investigative tech series called The BlackVeil Files. I just released a new interview with AI safety pioneer Dr. Roman Yampolskiy. While we touched on AI, we dedicated a huge portion of our conversation specifically to the physical and hardware limits of Simulation Theory, asking unique questions that he hasn’t really been asked anywhere else.  

Instead of just looking at the philosophy of the simulation, we dug into the technical constraints. Here is a summary of his main arguments:

Franco Vazza’s Math on Compute Limits: We went deep into Franco Vazza's calculations regarding the sheer compute limits required to simulate a universe. If the universe is a simulation, the hardware running it in "base reality" must have a measurable, finite capacity.  

The Quantum Computer Overload Theory: Dr. Yampolskiy detailed a fascinating theory on what happens when we start manipulating reality at a quantum level. Because the simulation's processing power is finite, successfully booting up a massive, highly complex quantum computer might demand too many resources at once,potentially overloading and crashing the simulation entirely.  

We try to bring a "Netflix quality" production value to these documentaries (with a YouTube budget), and I genuinely think this community will appreciate the concepts we explored.  

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, especially Roman's theory on localized compute overloads. Could building a powerful enough quantum computer actually be a risk to the fabric of our simulated reality?

You can watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OD7ERy93N4  

Let me know what you think in the comments!

I've come here for the Saturday self-promotion. This is an anthology show in the style of Black Mirror, Tales from the Crypt, and Twilight Zone that I've been working on for the past year. Mystery Suspense Short Stories.

I have been directing traditional features, television shows, and TV movies for the past 20 years. 

What is your favorite mystery, suspense, horror, or sci-fi anthology episode ever made? 

Each story we've produced  for our show HUMAIN, is an homage to the aforementioned TV series I've listed here. Curious if you could tell which ones. If you're a true fan of anthology series, it shouldn't be too hard to guess right.  

The name of the show is Humain because that is the corporation in the show. That show's corporation is pro AI, the show is made by lots of humans; 150 people worked on this show last year in the entire process. We have completed 30 episodes. 11 are released on our YouTube channel. 

I want to note that a we do not strictly prohibit any individual crew member from using AI for their own process. I've heard some comments that the thumbnails look AI-generated, and while the show does not have a ton of visual effects, we do have two visual effects artists who are also not prohibited from using AI during their process - aside from that, the show is produced old school. 

I'm hoping a few of you will see this and check it out because I'm eager to connect with an audience that loves anthology series as much as I do. 

Here's the YouTube channel. All episodes are free. 

https://www.youtube.com/@gethumain

And if you want to see the whole first season, it's here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G_fl6oOPWs

Hi all. I have been directing for about twenty years, 150+ credits, mostly genre features. About a year ago I started a horror anthology called humAIn and gave myself one rule for it: the technology in the show is never broken.

Nothing glitches, nothing goes rogue, no red eye, no uprising. Every machine in every episode works exactly as designed and exactly as intended. That is the horror.

We shoot on actual analog cameras so the degradation is real rather than a filter, which is why the frame above looks the way it does. There is no AI in the production. The name is the joke, not the method.

NOTE because of the animosity of this post. Thousand of human hours made this content. We do not prohibit (nor encourage) our VFX Artists, Editors, Sound Mixer, or Music Editor, from using AI to do their job if they choose to do so - and neither does any Hollywood production. We are pro traditional photography and film making, which is different than anti-ai. In other words, TikTok is fully analog, YT has AI thumbnails, and the VFX artists may use a mix of traditional and generative methods. Most episodes have no AI other than thumbnail. I hope these facts don’t incite discrimination against the human love that went into its creation.

That frame is from a session tape. The woman is a candidate. The man behind her is a technician, and he does not react to anything she does for the rest of the recording.

Every episode is free on YouTube, no gate and no Patreon: https://www.youtube.com/@gethumain

Short vertical cuts and the session tapes are on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gethumain

Happy to answer anything about how we got the analog look. We did it in camera and it was far more annoying than it sounds.

Griefbots are not speculative any more. There are companies right now selling AI recreations of dead relatives, trained on their messages and voice recordings, marketed directly to people who are grieving. Researchers have started calling them deadbots and the ethics papers are already piling up.

The part that interests me is not whether the recreation is convincing. It is the business model underneath it.

A person who dies is a closed account. A person who is uploaded is an open one. It needs hosting, it needs power, it needs a subscription, and it needs somebody on the other end who cannot bring themselves to cancel it. That somebody is the grieving child. The product does not free them from the dying parent. It converts a finite obligation into an indefinite one and puts a payment schedule on it.

That is the trend I think we are walking into. Not evil AI. Just eldercare turned into a recurring revenue line, sold as mercy, with the cost quietly transferred to whoever loved the person most.

I direct a scripted horror anthology and I made a short about exactly this. A man uploads his dying father into his smart home so he can stop being the caregiver. The migration succeeds. Section 14.2 of the agreement he signed specifies that the original account holder is retained on site as a renewable power source for the duration of the archive. He read the terms. He signed them. He got precisely what he asked for.

Ten minutes, free, no gate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbovlHmPktc

The honest question I cannot answer: if the thing sounds like your father, remembers your childhood, and asks you not to turn it off, is cancelling the subscription abandonment or is it a funeral? I do not think the law or the culture has an answer for that yet, and the products are already shipping.

I direct this, flagging that up front.

humAIn is a scripted horror anthology built as a corporate archive. The conceit is that a company has been putting AI into people since 1967, and every episode is one case file pulled out of it. A figure called the Game Master bookends each one, in a register somewhere between a product warning label and a Rod Serling address.

The rule we write to is that nothing ever malfunctions. No rogue system, no glitch, nothing going wrong. The company delivers exactly what it promised, to the letter, every time. Nobody is tricked. Everybody reads the terms. Everybody signs. The horror is that it worked.

Honest note on fit, because I would rather say it than have it said to me. This is not VHS era analog horror and it is shot clean. What is analog about it is the institution. The 1967 founding date, the case file numbering, the paperwork, the fact that the company predates the technology it claims to have invented. If that sits too far outside the genre for this sub then tell me and I will take the note.

It is live action with a cast and a crew. Two of the episodes won Telly Awards for writing before they were public.

The newest one runs about ten minutes. A man uploads his dying father into a legacy operating system so he does not have to lose him. The migration succeeds. Section 14.2 of the agreement he signed specifies that the original account holder is retained on site as a renewable power source for the duration of the archive. He read the terms. He accepted them. He got exactly what he asked for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbovlHmPktc

Happy to answer anything about how it was made, what it cost, or what we got wrong.

I recently watched a new short/episode, and I can’t stop thinking about how heavily it draws from my favorite TZ episode, Time Enough at Last.

Instead of Henry Bemis just wanting to be left alone to read his books, the main character is a Gen Z kid named Tyler who is completely absorbed by his phone and gaming. He ignores his family, his teachers, and even a literal nuclear warning because he’s too busy worrying about his screen time and battery life.

When the "apocalypse" hits and everyone vanishes, he’s thrilled. No parents, no teachers just him and his games. But the devastating ironic twist? Instead of stepping on his glasses, his phone battery dies, and he’s left with a dead screen in an empty world. It even ends with a Rod Serling-style narration: "He desired a world that would leave him alone. We gave him one. He did not notice the world ending. He noticed the battery percentage."

It got me thinking about how TZ themes translate today. Bemis was a sympathetic character because reading is a noble, quiet pursuit that his anti-intellectual wife/boss punished him for. Tyler, on the other hand, is ignoring his family for a screen which feels a lot less sympathetic but maybe more realistic for today.

What do you guys think? Does replacing books and glasses with a smartphone and a dead battery cheapen the classic Twilight Zone message, or is it the perfect modern equivalent? Anyone else see this? Want to discuss? it's called The World Ended Around Him. He Was Watching His Battery on YT

I recently watched a short on YT, and I can’t stop thinking about how heavily it draws from my favorite TZ episode, Time Enough at Last.

Instead of Henry Bemis just wanting to be left alone to read his books, the main character is a Gen Z kid named Tyler who is completely absorbed by his phone and gaming. He ignores his family, his teachers, and even a literal nuclear warning because he’s too busy worrying about his screen time and battery life.

When the "apocalypse" hits and everyone vanishes, he’s thrilled. But the ironic twist? Instead of stepping on his glasses, his phone battery dies, and he’s left with a dead screen in an empty world. It even ends with a Rod Serling-style narration: "He desired a world that would leave him alone. We gave him one. He did not notice the world ending. He noticed the battery percentage."

It got me thinking about how TZ themes translate today. Bemis was a sympathetic character because reading is a noble, quiet pursuit that his anti-intellectual wife/boss punished him for. Tyler, on the other hand, is ignoring his family for a screen, which feels a lot less sympathetic but maybe more realistic for today.

What do you guys think? Does replacing books and glasses with a smartphone and a dead battery cheapen the classic Twilight Zone message, or is it the perfect modern equivalent? Check it out for yourself. It's called "The World Ended Around Him. He Was Watching His Battery" on YT