There is a hypothesis as to regards to the simulation theory that goes something like this:
ABSTRACT
"At least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed."
Nick Bostrom.
Now say in the eventual future of our world, we will gain a foothold on how to create Conscious AI, they have self awareness, whether or not they can feel joy, pain, sadness suffering or simply a completely neutral emotion is left completely up to the developers.
How would you design your simulation? Would you design a Utopian society, no saddness, nothing negative, a literal heaven inside your "Hyperbox" aka your simulated civilization. Would you give them the ability to feel pain, whether it's emotional or physical. Example: If a "Sim" in the Hyperbox trips overs and hits a rock, will you design them to be able to feel pain, or to not feel anything painful from such an experience. If you get seriously ill or injured, do you want the "Sims" to spend every moment depressed from worrying about you till you are better, or do you want them to feel concern for you, but be able to retain a happy mood?
The utopian universe itself would be absolutely massive, this is the future we are talking about, a future which might use femto-computing which would be far superior to nano-computing. The universe would be significantly larger than the Earth, it would be perhaps the size of several starsystems.
Because these entities would be as conscious as I am now, as the average person is now, I would likely do what I could with the Hyperbox to ensure a Utopian vision. Before giving them consciousness, I probably would not program them the ability to feel pain, anger, or hatred, but the ability to feel joy, excitement, neutral, very mild sadness, and very mild jealousy, pride, and thankfulness. The ability to feel high levels of empathy, love, like, and disapproval when things are not going right. The amount of greed they would experience would be next to nothing. Because the physical earth has a carrying capacity while the virtual world is borderline infinite, I would program them to be content with living in a virtual world and not being a physical body in the real world. If I programmed them to want a body in the real world, we might run into some over crowding issues VS their disapproval of my derision.
In addition, I would program them to be willing to be friends which each other and towards me and anyone else who would respect them.
Because I do not want a civilization of entities with the level of intelligence of new born babies, I will have to decide what knowledge they should know, I will probably upload equal knowledge and skill into each of them, and let them decide/choose which skills they want to specialize in if this is a practical and safe approach. My only concern is what if 95% of them choose to specialize in one type of skill, it could make people act too much like clones, but hey, I prefer them to choose what skills they want than to be some guy 'me' to command which ones they should get.
The reason why I would do this before sparking, or giving consciousness to them is I do not believe in interfering with once's free will once they are a person with consciousness, with the exception that they consent to change themselves. Once they are conscious, I will see them in many ways as an equal even though I would be the administrator for the Hyperbox. I could consider them my 1 million family or friends.
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How would you design your simulation? Program artificial resources roughly identical to that of our Earth, and let them choose to either live in peace, or in war with one another? Or would you design a Utopian society. What would your relation with your conscious sims be like? Friendship? Or would you keep your real identity hidden and they to not ever know who you are.
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Other aspects of the universe will include megacities hundreds of miles wide with baroque architecture, roman architecture, Russian architecture and much much more. It will be a post-scarcity anarchy with the exception of myself as a server administrator and game developer, everyone has the ability to self regulate their own emotions, and all shall participate greatly to the game development of planets, cities, and galaxies if they choose to. Some planets/moons will be baron, some will be full of life, some will defy our laws of physics while some will not. There will be earth like planets the size of the Sun without crushing gravity, and hydrogen-helium stars that can fit in the palm of your hand, or the size of entire star systems. These are just the tip of what I will design.