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by ctchocula 814 days ago
People don't use the metaphor literally because it doesn't make sense from a 2nd Law of Thermodynamics perspective. If the Matrix was created by AGI for thr sake of producing energy, it would make no sense at all to keep humans around in pods, because it costs them more energy to keep a human alive than what they get out of the human.

The movie producers realized the problem in later movies and added some mumbojumbo that they were keeping humans around for their neural networks, but that still requires the viewer to take it on faith.
2 comments
autoexec 814 days ago
> The movie producers realized the problem in later movies and added some mumbojumbo that they were keeping humans around for their neural networks, but that still requires the viewer to take it on faith.

I suppose it could just be a myth, but I always thought that was the original premise and it was hollywood execs who insisted on making the matrix about batteries on the assumption that audiences wouldn't understand the concept of neural networks.

see for example: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/19817/was-executiv...

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squigz 814 days ago
This was the way I've always explained the battery thing. For a more lore-friendly reason, one could say the humans just don't really understand why the machines are keeping us alive, and so make the best guess they're using us literally as batteries.
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staticman2 812 days ago
"I suppose it could just be a myth, but I always thought that was the original premise and it was hollywood execs who insisted on making the matrix about batteries on the assumption that audiences wouldn't understand the concept of neural networks"

It's a myth. It was always batteries in the script, but when Neil Gaiman was hired to do a Matrix short story he added lines about using the humans as a neural network because he thought the battery thing was stupid. I've seen this well documented online so you should be able to find it if you try.

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kromem 811 days ago
You may have missed this part of my comment:

> it strikes me that the most preposterous concept in The Matrix was not the nature of its reality, but the notion that there were any bodies in pods somewhere to exit into.

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