Is Virtual Reality a First Step Into Virtual Worlds?

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When we think of virtual worlds, I think of them as sort of different degrees of immersion. We're seeing the beginning of VR headsets that are pretty fully immersive. You're already in a virtual world when you play a video game on a desktop. Once it's immersive, I guess it just becomes all the more real and all the more continuous with physical reality.

Last year, Rufus sat down with philosopher David Chalmers to talk about the allure of virtual reality, whether robots will ever achieve consciousness, and the likelihood that we’re living in a simulation (David thinks it’s about 25 percent). It was a fascinating, freewheeling conversation, and we left large chunks of it on the cutting room floor. Now, though, with ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms taking the world by storm, those unaired sections, many of which were about the ethics of artificial intelligence, feel super relevant. So today, we’re sharing our complete interview with David. Buckle up. It’s a wild ride.