(TIL) Today I learned that there is a driving simulator that produces realistic output

Yesterday I was surfing on YouTube for videos of the famous 21-km long Nürburgring track...

I was watching various cars and how they take the corners, from onboard videos, until I arrived at a McLaren video with a claimed performance of under 7 minutes for their McLaren P1 supercar.

There is no video of that attempt, so I then searched further to find some private party who might have done a lap with a McLaren P1. So, after a bit of searching, I got to this video:

About a minute or so after it started, I realized I'm watching a PC Game.

I was in shock.

Usually, I'm aware that I've clicked on a simulator link within 1 to 2 seconds - not over a minute.

The only thing that got me wondering was the camera shot which was very clear and I couldn't see the glass reflections - supposing the camera was near the passenger dash. Other than that, it seemed pretty normal. The physics and sound of the car also sound normal - so nothing tipped me that something is off.

To be duped for so long, despite having extensive experience in distinguishing between the real and the simulation, was shocking. I was expecting this level of realism for 2020-2025, not 2015-16. I was totally caught off-guard with this. If someone asked me beforehand, I would have made a bet with my house that it would be impossible to get fooled by a simulator, yet it happened.

By scrolling down the video comments, one can see that a lot of people didn't even understood they were watching a simulation, until they read it in the comments.

The Simulation Hypothesis

Inevitably, this brings us to the "Simulation Hypothesis" and how we will be developing technology that will be able to simulate our reality in such a level of realism that it becomes indistinguishable from reality.

This, in turn, brings us to the next point, of whether this reality, is, in itself, a virtual reality which is so realistic that we cannot perceive it as "fake" - because we somehow developed this VR technology in the past, and are now living in that VR.

I think this video goes a long way to demonstrating this sequence of concepts. I always knew it was coming, I just never expected it has already happened - with commercial hardware and software nonetheless.