The Exit Illusion

It was a dark and stormy night. I was driving and found myself in the middle of nowhere, definitely a place where I have never been before. I will be the first to admit, I was tired and badly in need of a nap. But nowhere there was a motel or a resting place to be found. Besides, I was eager to get to my destination. I blinked once or twice and reached out to my thermos in hope to get some coffee. Empty. It was then that I found the first billboard in a series on the side of the road. Their contents were the most strange that I have seen in a while. They didn’t have any images, just white words staring back at me from a red background. I called it the exit illusion.

“How do you know that the last exit wasn’t just… fake?!”

That made me think, what did the last exit look like? I didn’t remember. For sure, it was nondescript, like many others that came before. Was that some hint that I should have taken it? Maybe that was the right way, and by not taking it I came to some godforsaken place? Up to that moment I didn’t stop to think whether I was sure of where I was going. That made me doubt it, and to be honest I didn’t know whether I was lost. Looking closely, that road looked darker and more sinister than it had been before. It was then that I saw the next billboard.

“What if the road ahead doesn’t exist until you drive it?”

First it questioned the exit, now, the road itself. It is true, I was following the road, but was it real? How could I be so sure? Now I was eager to take an exit, any exit and leave that road. But for the next miles I didn’t see any. There was no U-turn as well. And now, this is strange. The road seemed narrower. It was just one way. It seemed impossible to come back. I should be used to it by now, but then I saw the next billboard.

“Actually, does this billboard exist, or are we in a simulation?”

All the philosophical questions I had in my entire life came rushing back to me. I thought about the Cartesian skepticism. And The Matrix, of course. How, oh how, could I be so sure that I wasn’t in a fabricated world? Or in an evil simulation? Was that all run by Artificial Intelligence? What if the visible world was really a hallucination? And here I was chasing an exit illusion! Could our incipient AI be a distraction from the more powerful technology, or god, or demon, behind it? How could I test it? As if it was reading my thoughts, the next billboard prophesied.

“Relax and stop questioning reality. If this is a simulation, you will never know. Or will you?”

I felt helpless and powerless. If superintelligence already existed, how could I beat it? The road was becoming even darker, narrower and more menacing. The sky seemed an infinite black void, lacking any light, covered in heavy clouds. Would I give up or would I fight back? I didn’t see any way to return. And I wanted desperately to do it. All of it surely seemed an exit illusion.

A thought then occurred to me. What if whatever this simulation was trying to do was to make me go back? But the way out was going ahead, embracing the dark and the unknown? I braced myself and pushed the gas pedal. I needed to try it…

(to be continued… or not)