The plot of The Matrix was supposedly originally based on the humans’ brains used as the hardware substrate for running the computers’ programs – if you like, human brains as CPUs – explaining why the computers needed to keep humans alive in tanks but in a dream-like state.
This was deemed to confusing for audiences to understand, so the story was changed so that humans became the power source for the machines. Since humans take in a lot more energy (food) than they produce as heat (or “bioelectric power”), this makes zero sense. In a future world driven by physics as we understand it, the machines would be better off killing all the humans and using some other power source.
The brains-as-CPUs version of the story is both physically plausible and a lot more interesting than the humans-as-batteries version. So some Matrix fans maintain that this is what was happening in the movie, with the human battery explanation just Morpheus’s misunderstanding.
This was deemed to confusing for audiences to understand, so the story was changed so that humans became the power source for the machines. Since humans take in a lot more energy (food) than they produce as heat (or “bioelectric power”), this makes zero sense. In a future world driven by physics as we understand it, the machines would be better off killing all the humans and using some other power source.
The brains-as-CPUs version of the story is both physically plausible and a lot more interesting than the humans-as-batteries version. So some Matrix fans maintain that this is what was happening in the movie, with the human battery explanation just Morpheus’s misunderstanding.