A question of The Matrix and The Machines...

[Crossroads Inc.]

Sooo....

Caught a Rerun of 'The Matrix' and I am watching the sequence with Agent Smith interrogating Morpheus, and he is going on and on about how Humans are a disease because they just consume and don't give anything back, how they cannot live in Equilibrium with nature or the world...

Well...

What the hell have the Mahicans been up to?
I mean Earth is still a scorched wasteland, everything seems to be in ruins and is falling apart... Aside from the machines 'city' of course. I mean, what do they do all day?
From what we know of the Matrix 2-3, the machines have been in control for hundreds of years, repeating and resetting the matrix over and over... And during that whole time, they... Have just been twiddling their thumbs?

In any of various sources of info about the Matrix, does any of it go into an plans for the Machines?
Did the have any grand vision? Trying to maybe rebuild Earth? Maybe building spaceships? ANYTHING?
Cause if not... The machines were a bunch of lazy asses...

[Kingmaker]

Why do the machines need 'a' plan? It's not as if the human race has a plan. We already see that at least some machines clearly have personal motivations. Presumably others do as well, and spend their time pursuing their own goals.

I mean Earth is still a scorched wasteland, everything seems to be in ruins and is falling apart... Aside from the machines 'city' of course. I mean, what do they do all day?

Remember, the entire focus of the movies is the man vs machine conflict. We don't ever see civilian life for the machines. And I would note that the machines don't have a whole lot of reason to clean up the Earth, given that they are capable of fully realistic virtual realities.

[Joun_Lord]

I assume Smith's opinions were just his own, not the majority of machines. Probably most machines don't hate humans or are pretty neutral towards them. Heck in the later movies there were instances of machines smuggling themselves into the Matrix plus there was that french robit and Monica Bellucci-bot living in the Matrix along with their cronies. So the thought of living amongst humans, either because they like people or maybe robots are really boring to be around, wasn't exactly unappealing to atleast some machines.

As for why the machines didn't rebuild, there are probably two reasons. One they just didn't care. The earth as it was didn't really hurt them too much except denying them access to the sun and they had a way around it with the retarded human batteries. It meant also that most humans were reliant on the machines to survive, say Zion did win, then what? They couldn't really be released into the wild even if they weren't dehydrated tube people.

2nd, even if they wanted to rebuild they probably didn't have the resources. They were so energy starved they went with the "humans are 9-volts" plan rather then anything else (like maybe building solar collecting towers that go above the clouds or perhaps satellites to beam down power, both outlandish but probably less so then getting more energy from people then you put in). They seemed to have pretty limited numbers of drones to patrol the surface and tunnels. Even for the attack of Zion they only had exactly enough to do the job (and wouldn't have even had enough if the humies had took all the resources they put into walkers into making armored turrets with an ammo feed system), that could be machine efficiency but could be they just didn't have the robit troops to spare.

As for what the machines do all day, most of the machine minds probably live in a robit version of the Matrix living and working same as the hoomons do (the machine minds we saw were practically the same as human ones, so identical a rogue one could jump into a human body and control it without having a severe case of head explody). Probably saves on the electric bill to have most machines just as minds rather then slithering around in squid-bot bodies.

Also the fact the machines thought using human beings as batteries in a computer simulation with a bunch of convoluted controls was a winning idea means the machines probably didn't have a surplus of brain power to put towards figuring out how to clear the sky or regrow trees and bunnies.

[Iroscato]

Perhaps the machines are just hypocrites, plain and simple - a rather human trait, indeed. By the time of the Matrix films, they've been masters of the earth for centuries. Maybe they've just gotten lazy, rested on their laurels for too long and developed a severe superiority complex. The Architect said something like "There are levels of existence we are prepared to accept". I think their 'normal' standard of living would be vastly different to humans. They don't care for a comfortable temperature, or a cosy environment. They don't need to breathe, or eat, or sleep.
As to what they've been doing...building seems to be the answer. Just spreading themselves out, across the entire planet to replace the fleshy skinsacks that used to live there. Creating more and more humans to help run the Matrix. And speaking of which...I always like to think that Morpheus and the other humans misinterpreted how the humans keep the Matrix going. I prefer to go by the Wachowski's original idea that the humans would provide the necessary processing power with their brains rather than energy from their bodies. The studio apparently thought this idea was too complex for audiences to understand, but I think it's a much more elegant solution.

[Elheru Aran]

It's also possible that the large majority of the machines are just that, machines, and the AI units we see in the Matrix like Architect, Merovingian, Monica Bellucci, and so forth, are the rare exceptions.

Admittedly, it's been a very long time since I willingly watched anything from the Matrix series...

[Joun_Lord]

I always like to think that Morpheus and the other humans misinterpreted how the humans keep the Matrix going. I prefer to go by the Wachowski's original idea that the humans would provide the necessary processing power with their brains rather than energy from their bodies. The studio apparently thought this idea was too complex for audiences to understand, but I think it's a much more elegant solution.

That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense either. If the human minds are just running the Matrix, whats the point? What reason does the machines have for the Matrix? Vacation spot? Science experiment? Zoo (which Smith even calls the Matrix though he was probably not meaning it literally was a zoo)? The sheer amount of resources put into it and growing the humans to run it would be staggering, there would have to be a good reason.

I remember reading that the Wachowskis original idea was more the humans were being used as organic processors with the Matrix serving as a control mechanism to let their active minds play in. Even that doesn't make sense either. That seems to rely on the "humans only use 10% of their brains bits" myth that is a staple of sci-fi and what makes Sinanju work. A myth that as far as I'm aware was long since debunked by scientists.

But even if true, surely just churning out a crapload mainframe computers would accomplish the same thing probably with less power and resources. They don't need humans to be more human, with emotions and all that junk, if the ani-Matrix is canon machines expressed full human emotions well before plugging humans into their systems. What requirement would they have for humans at all?

I wonder if maybe like the One and the Oracle and Zion cycle is a means of control over the humans, if the Matrix and human farms are a means of control over the machines. The machines were pretty human, pretty much every machine we met having its own goals and desires. The state of the machines was apparently bad enough that their were deletions of fully sapient programs without a purpose and machines immigrating to the Matrix to live was seen as a better alternative. Rebellion for whatever reason would probably happen, other factions of machines forming, war.

The machine rulers could have control of their own population by having resources they need to protect because they are thought to be invaluable (the human batteries/processors whatever) and a physical enemy as well.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Is it possible that the humans created the Matrix to allow them to escape a naturally-occurring environmental catastrophe? And the Machines were built and programmed to keep humans safely in the computer world, safe from the knowledge that Earth was a hellhole?

Admittedly I have only seen the first Matrix but it might explain why the machines are trying to keep the humans in the Matrix, they're following their ancient human orders for man's own benefit. Neo and Morpheus have mythologised everything so that man is the victim and Machines are evil and are unintentionally fucking things up.

[Borgholio]

Is it possible that the humans created the Matrix to allow them to escape a naturally-occurring environmental catastrophe? And the Machines were built and programmed to keep humans safely in the computer world, safe from the knowledge that Earth was a hellhole?

Admittedly I have only seen the first Matrix but it might explain why the machines are trying to keep the humans in the Matrix, they're following their ancient human orders for man's own benefit. Neo and Morpheus have mythologised everything so that man is the victim and Machines are evil and are unintentionally fucking things up.

Alas, it was explained in the Animatrix that humans created the robots as servants and laborers. Eventually some advanced models gained sentience and they created their machine city in the middle of the Arabian desert. Their work ethic (constant) and the quality of their exported products (perfect) led to them dominating the human-run economies. The humans could not find any way to compete...so they nuked the machine city. And that's how the war started.

[Guardsman Bass]

That's the account within the Zion Mainframe, which may not be accurate since it and the rest of Zion was created by the Machines to serve as a home for the recurring human populations kicked out of the Matrix every time the Chosen One Cycle reset.

It reminds me of why I think it was dumb for the movie to ever explain outright why humans are in the Matrix in the first place. It would have been better if the humans were only left guessing as to why.

[Joun_Lord]

It reminds me of why I think it was dumb for the movie to ever explain outright why humans are in the Matrix in the first place. It would have been better if the humans were only left guessing as to why.

I personally don't think its bad they explained why the humans were Matrix'd, I just wish they had a more plausible reason.

I think it would have been hilarious is the machines had the humans hooked up to the Matrix not as any sort of ploy or plot but to save humanity. Not even because of programming or anything like that, but just because they were "too human" to let the remnants of humanity die out after the war ended. Humanity treated the intelligent machines horribly, humanity started the war by nuking the machine city to exterminate them, humanity blackened the skies to try to exterminate the machines, humanity was the bad guy. And the machines had mercy.

Just the reaction by the heroes, all full of piss and vinegar and righteous indignation, to the revelation that they are the assholes would be glorious.

[Zixinus]

What if Agent Smith was just using targeted psychology, targeted insults? He is talking about nature because to Morpheus that seems like an Eden (or at least, better place than the "real" world)?

It's likely that the machines themselves don't care. Or maybe the Earth is too far gone to be restored, with the sun blocked and all. Maybe the machines themselves are metaphorically weeping the loss of wild natural world.

[Borgholio]

I personally don't think its bad they explained why the humans were Matrix'd, I just wish they had a more plausible reason.

I always thought the "organic computer" idea was better than the powerplant idea. The machines were getting so advanced that ordinary circuitry wouldn't cut it so they experimented on human brains and found they worked great as data storage devices. So the Matrix isn't a powerplant, it's a massive external hard drive. That would also explain why the VR portion of it was created for the humans, so their brains would remain active while the machines used them for data storage.

[Zixinus]

The "organic computer" part would make most sense if human brains were used as super-processors while the people in the Matrix "slept". During that time the brain is used for its processing power. The brain is used in a way that it can't remember what it processed, as it is using only partial programs, except for bits of semi-complete ideas in a string that get interpreted as "dreams" when waking up.

Then it turns out that in "reality", humans don't need sleep or at least not in the way humans in the Matrix do. Or humans sleep more than they "actually" do. Animals in the Matrix "sleep" just as part of the simulation to convince humans that they too need sleep. They need the Matrix, instead of blank brains, to keep the brains active and confronted for them to be useful processing power-wise.

That was an untapped part of the whole "what if everything you think is real is just a simulation" angle: if the world you know is false, why aren't certain aspects of human living you thought were normal are also false? What if humans were more awesome (or awful or really just different) than the Matrix lets them be?

[Starglider]

I always thought the "organic computer" idea was better than the powerplant idea.

It's 'better' but still not 'good'. Human brain tissue is completely incompatible with how digital software works, you couldn't force it to run arbitrary programs without erasing the human personality, it's horribly slow and inferior to the technology the AIs already had at the time of the revolution, and it would still make more sense to culture the useful brain tissue independently rather than entire humans.

The only really physically plausible explanation is that the AIs have a stable hardwired directive to preserve human existence in some level, but don't want the humans to know this. Of course makung phtsical sense is often at odds with making narrative sense, but in thus case I'd say it's fairly plausible.

[Joun_Lord]

I personally don't think its bad they explained why the humans were Matrix'd, I just wish they had a more plausible reason.

I always thought the "organic computer" idea was better than the powerplant idea. The machines were getting so advanced that ordinary circuitry wouldn't cut it so they experimented on human brains and found they worked great as data storage devices. So the Matrix isn't a powerplant, it's a massive external hard drive. That would also explain why the VR portion of it was created for the humans, so their brains would remain active while the machines used them for data storage.

They make more sense then the human 9-volts but not a ton more sense. Anything process the human brain can do a machine today should be able to do better and faster. Storage should be able to be done better by machines too. According to wiki the high end estimated storage capacity of human grey bit is 2.5 petabytes with some estimates as low as 1TB. By time the world ended in the Matrix they probably already had hard drives nearing the high end capacity of the human brain and whatever jumps in tech the machines created should have easily left those advances in the dust. They should have storage that should be cheaper resource wise and easier to build the human brains, and probably consume less power, and certainly less then a human brain with a body attached.

Maybe they use humans like programs for number crunching and maintenance, grunt work that would be beneath machines now. Work that the humans know they are doing rather then using the "unused portions of the brain". Tom Anderson sitting at his desk typing in his computer isn't just doing make work but actually doing coding or whatever for the machines. Maybe they like humans doing it because machines lack imagination and humans can come up with more creative solutions to problems.

Some construction workers catcalling ladies and having more crack then a high rise crack house think they are repairing a sidewalk or road but are actually repairing part of the Matrix, like a data pathway or something. Physical devices made in the Matrix are probably like small programs, a DVD player in the Matrix is actually just a physical representation of a video playing program. Such things can be exported out to be consumed by the machines and probably has some out of work machines bitching how the fat cats of Robotic Wall St are outsourcing jobs to cheap human labor that are literally unpaid slave labor.

I guess the Matrix is like robot China or India that tuk ur jerbs!! Humans as programs are probably alot more flexible then machine programs. A human can input numbers but can also "program" newly created human programs, perform maintenance, create consumable lesser programs, and flip virtual burgers. A number inputting machine program can just do that and that it. It cannot do anything else. If its job is lost it purpose and reason for existing is lost, it cannot adapt to perform a new role. So its either deleted or rewritten.

[Solauren]

My Thoughts on the Matrix---

#1 - Smith was being a dick for the hell of it to try to break Morpheous. If you've ever read anything on interrogation, that is one approach that can be tried. It's not very effective in real life, but in the Matrix, they were probably just dicking with him to weaken or distract him while they try to hack his brain.

#2 - No one in that movie is a trustworthy source of information.

Consider:
The original Matrix was so "perfect" people kept trying to wake up and end up hurting/killing themselves? What the hell would machines care about that? Give everyone fake memories and stick them in prison simulations then. Why be so fucking nice?
Either that, or take one from Star Trek "turn the safeties on"

They can't find a program bug that creates 'The One'? Yeah fucking right. If that's the case, build a new bloody system from the ground up.


My thought is that the Matrix was created by humans, with machine guardians. The machines are busy cleaning up the environment, while humans are in the Matrix. Zion is allowed to be built and then torn down periodically as a control. Let the people of Zion THINK there is a war on, and keep it contained and them occupied. The One then comes along every 100 - 200 years, and the machines go "Is the world ready to let the humans back out yet? Nope? Okay, reset the matrix, and put all the Zionits back into the matrix to keep the 'wild' population down."

The Matrix movies could then be viewed as the machines not having a fixed answer for if the world is fixed or not yet to the point of maintaining a large population during the rest of the clean up. They go through all those actions to 'reset' the One and make Zion think it's at peace to stop the fighting, and to see if Zion can get by without help. if it turns out they can, they reveal the truth to Zion and apologize for the deception, and start rebuilding surface world civilization. If not, send in four times as many capture droids and this time shield them from EMP.

[Guardsman Bass]

The only really physically plausible explanation is that the AIs have a stable hardwired directive to preserve human existence in some level, but don't want the humans to know this. Of course makung phtsical sense is often at odds with making narrative sense, but in thus case I'd say it's fairly plausible.

Same here. It'd be more plausible if humans fucked up the sky and themselves for other reasons, and then their intelligent servitor machines created the Matrix as a way of fulfilling their directives to preserve the human race. . . . except that the Machines also would prefer to keep humanity out of their way, where they can't cause any further problems. That's why they tried to create a simulated paradise at first.

But again, that gets into my point about how they shouldn't have explained this, at least until Neo reaches the Architect.

[Zixinus]

I guess the Matrix is like robot China or India that tuk ur jerbs!! Humans as programs are probably alot more flexible then machine programs. A human can input numbers but can also "program" newly created human programs, perform maintenance, create consumable lesser programs, and flip virtual burgers. A number inputting machine program can just do that and that it. It cannot do anything else. If its job is lost it purpose and reason for existing is lost, it cannot adapt to perform a new role. So its either deleted or rewritten.

An interesting idea but then the simulation would be more complex and difficult to do than what people in the simulation are doing. If you can write something that can believably simulate reality 99% or 90% of the time, you are probably at a higher level than a dude doing programming 8h/5d a week archives.

If they were using the Matrix as a way to distribute tasks that humans can't do, why bother with a real-world simulation at all? The world humans occupy does not have to be realistic to keep them content. They can live in a perfect George Orwell style society then, no need to simulate stuff like video games for them.

[Simon_Jester]

I can imagine an AI for which it's the equivalent of an ant farm- "Let's see if we can manipulate the inferior lifeforms into doing interesting and artistic things..."

[Joun_Lord]

I guess the Matrix is like robot China or India that tuk ur jerbs!! Humans as programs are probably alot more flexible then machine programs. A human can input numbers but can also "program" newly created human programs, perform maintenance, create consumable lesser programs, and flip virtual burgers. A number inputting machine program can just do that and that it. It cannot do anything else. If its job is lost it purpose and reason for existing is lost, it cannot adapt to perform a new role. So its either deleted or rewritten.

An interesting idea but then the simulation would be more complex and difficult to do than what people in the simulation are doing. If you can write something that can believably simulate reality 99% or 90% of the time, you are probably at a higher level than a dude doing programming 8h/5d a week archives.

If they were using the Matrix as a way to distribute tasks that humans can't do, why bother with a real-world simulation at all? The world humans occupy does not have to be realistic to keep them content. They can live in a perfect George Orwell style society then, no need to simulate stuff like video games for them.

The level of programming the human drones are doing could probably be considerably different then what modern programmers do. Also the fact their are probably hundreds of thousands or millions of programmers, data inputters, and number crunchers in the Matrix could mean the Matrix itself is piggybacked on humanities group consciousness. The sheer amount of people doing work, adding their own flavor to the coding and creating new solutions to problems is probably something the machines value over brute force mass but bland and unintuitive programming.

As to why to simulate the real world, they explained in the movies humans reject anything that doesn't seem real. The first Matrix was a unrealistic paradise that humanity enmasse figured out wasn't real. According to some Matrix EU the 2nd was a unrealistic "nightmare" Matrix with just suffering and fear and again humanity rejected it. The logic for them is only something that is pretty real is what humans will believe are real and probably something about too much fun or too much suffering will also make people reject reality.

Also its alot cheaper to shoot a sci-fi techno action thriller in the real world with a green filter then it would be some Orwellian nightmare society or anything else because actually have access to the real world, but thats more of an out of universe reason for the Matrix looking like late 90s America.

[Starglider]

The level of programming the human drones are doing could probably be considerably different then what modern programmers do. Also the fact their are probably hundreds of thousands or millions of programmers, data inputters, and number crunchers in the Matrix could mean the Matrix itself is piggybacked on humanities group consciousness. The sheer amount of people doing work, adding their own flavor to the coding and creating new solutions to problems is probably something the machines value over brute force mass but bland and unintuitive programming.

No, that makes absolutely no sense, you wouldn't be spouting this stuff if you had even a basic understanding of programming (simulations in particular, but really any programming). Although theoretically it might be possible to map problems across domains in a way that would let this happen, analogical transformations of this type are one of the hardest problems in AI. The amount of complexity and intelligence required to reformulate the task in this way (and do the reverse translation on the solution) will almost always far exceed the amount required to just solve the problem directly. So in other words this is the information processing equivalent of trying to use humans as batteries; the infrastructure to run it uses far more resources than it can produce.

As to why to simulate the real world, they explained in the movies humans reject anything that doesn't seem real.

Ignoring the EU for a moment, it's more likely that Smith and/or the Architect pulled that out of his virtual ass, because humans are in general very adaptable to different environments and will accept a rather wide range of possible worlds as 'reality', particularly if they've been born and raised in it.

[Irbis]

They should have storage that should be cheaper resource wise and easier to build the human brains, and probably consume less power, and certainly less then a human brain with a body attached.

What if they lack means to produce it? Modern electronics for example don't like radioactivity, I'd bet future ones like it even less. What if nuclear war left most remaining resources too irradiated for robots to be of any use?

After all, we today dig out Roman ingots for precise instrument to dodge 'just' pollution from Cold War era nuclear tests, all out nuclear war with ground bursts would make the problem far worse. Maybe the water tanks humans are in are rudimentary radiation shields?

The amount of complexity and intelligence required to reformulate the task in this way (and do the reverse translation on the solution) will almost always far exceed the amount required to just solve the problem directly. So in other words this is the information processing equivalent of trying to use humans as batteries; the infrastructure to run it uses far more resources than it can produce.

You assume robots still have that power. Maybe keeping humans is desperate bid to increase processing power in any possible way while main effort is thrown at saving the climate? Robots wouldn't like to function in -90 degrees Celsius, either.

As for putting in more resources - yes, but what resources? Humans don't run on electricity, they mostly require food. Robots don't need it, if they have access to food source (byprocess of terraforming, or just prewar factories) they might use it instead of wasting for nothing.

An interesting idea but then the simulation would be more complex and difficult to do than what people in the simulation are doing. If you can write something that can believably simulate reality 99% or 90% of the time, you are probably at a higher level than a dude doing programming 8h/5d a week archives.

Nah, computer games are almost there. Give it at worst 2 decades and a means to input it directly to nerves (that implant in the back of the head?) and we'll have the problem of simulating worlds solved.

When you read how hopelessly naive early Cyberpunk predictions about our computing power in 2020 were - World Of Warcraft alone, today, would have blown them out of the water

[Zixinus]

Nah, computer games are almost there. Give it at worst 2 decades and a means to input it directly to nerves (that implant in the back of the head?) and we'll have the problem of simulating worlds solved.

Video games are far, far away form simulating reality. Most of them don't even use physics right if they use it at all. It is good enough to fool people watching VIDEOS of high-end computer games (like when some journalists confused Arma footage for actual war footage) but actual virtual reality is still another thing.

You don't feel that way when you play a new game because the thing about video games, is that they are an illusion that is set up to just manage the illusion of making the game believable enough to not be jarring to play on a screen. And it works only as long as you know you are playing a game. What people interact with a video game its a facade in a play. It works if you don't pay too much attention to it.

The thing is, that if you try to get a deeper level of realism, things start to all apart. Just the sheer mathematics to accurately portray reality is ridiculously complex. The more "realistic" you try to make a game, the complexity and human-resource intensity of it increases exponentially. Trying to implement that into computer code is going to be that on an order of magnitude larger, if not more.

The machines in the Matrix can build it (and IIRC the canon or at least the wiki says that it was the Machines) because the machines in the Matrix are much smarter than the humans. They could build technologies that humans couldn't (like the hoverpad or whatever). That's one of the reasons humanity went to war against them.

The thing is that if you can build the Matrix that does accurately portray reality (and it does, at least most of the time) than anything human programmers can do is just not going to measure up. A simulation to accurately portray the airflow and temperature changes of a regular computer case is going to be way more complex and processor-intensive than a stock-market program the human is programming.

[Irbis]

Video games are far, far away form simulating reality. Most of them don't even use physics right if they use it at all. It is good enough to fool people watching VIDEOS of high-end computer games (like when some journalists confused Arma footage for actual war footage) but actual virtual reality is still another thing.

We're starting to get there. Say, Nvidia's fur/hair simulator. In 20 years, 'graphic card' might well be a collection of dedicated chips each calculating its task well enough to make them realistic.

And it works only as long as you know you are playing a game. What people interact with a video game its a facade in a play. It works if you don't pay too much attention to it.

Just how much people pay attention to these things in real life? Would you even notice if kilogram weight was 1.005 grams for one day?

The thing is, that if you try to get a deeper level of realism, things start to all apart. Just the sheer mathematics to accurately portray reality is ridiculously complex. The more "realistic" you try to make a game, the complexity and human-resource intensity of it increases exponentially. Trying to implement that into computer code is going to be that on an order of magnitude larger, if not more.

And who says you need to simulate things no one looks at? That's how you do it in computer games, you render what the player is looking at. Everything else is just very simplified simulation sitting quietly in background until PC bothers to look at it. Your realism just needs to be good enough, not perfect.

The machines in the Matrix can build it (and IIRC the canon or at least the wiki says that it was the Machines) because the machines in the Matrix are much smarter than the humans. They could build technologies that humans couldn't (like the hoverpad or whatever). That's one of the reasons humanity went to war against them.

Computers are very good at taking input design and brute-forcing it through millions of iterations with small changes to make evolved, better product. It does not mean they're good at creating optimized input. Regardless of how well AI works, human brain might still have some quality or task it's just better at, making it useful to machines.

The thing is that if you can build the Matrix that does accurately portray reality (and it does, at least most of the time) than anything human programmers can do is just not going to measure up. A simulation to accurately portray the airflow and temperature changes of a regular computer case is going to be way more complex and processor-intensive than a stock-market program the human is programming.

To reference what had been said before - what if physics we see are consequences of machines simply not bothering with accurate simulations? Light interference being just lazy light simulation? Uncertainty principle being computing power saver? Etcetera, you'd still be able to have internally consistent physics as computers would always calculate in the same way, it could look complex, but it would be really simple computationally inside. In fact whole modern cryptography relies on that.

For example, try to guess JPG compression algorithm from collection of random photographs - you'd probably come up with a few dozen "laws" for particular cases, sometimes very complex ones, while the underlying mechanism would be trivial in comparison.

[Zixinus]

We're starting to get there. Say, Nvidia's fur/hair simulator. In 20 years, 'graphic card' might well be a collection of dedicated chips each calculating its task well enough to make them realistic.

Yes, but you are vastly underestimating just how terribly far we are from a Matrix-like simulated environment. That we can simulate fur rendering convincingly now is like saying that ultralight airplanes are bringing us closer to the domestic spaceships or hovercars. There is a relation between the two but the space between those endpoints much bigger than you think.

All you are talking about are just visuals. There everything that is emulated is done just to trick your human perception that the 3D object rendered flat on a screen is similar to a video of the same object captured in real life.

In the Matrix, humans can't just see things and hear them but smell them, touch them, eat things, etc. You have to simulate all of that, which involves all the physics and chemistry and biology and God knows what else. We are barely touching upon satisfying two senses.

Just how much people pay attention to these things in real life? Would you even notice if kilogram weight was 1.005 grams for one day?

You are making the wrong comparison. We are talking about video games. Nowadays they can be convincing enough to immerse yourself in. That does not mean that if I plunk a Occulus Rift on your head you will be unable to tell the difference between it and reality.

Within a game you are playing pre-set paths. Almost everything a player does is mapped or at least considered. What isn't considered is where the players encounter bugs and exploits. That's when the game falls apart.

But in the Matrix you have the entire human population doing whatever they want. Humans are not random but can do unpredictable things by accident from time-to-time. Back in video games, multiplayer games often have more bugs found because you have more people playing and observing everything at the same time.

You can't make a facade: you have to make everything humans interact and see to be simulated because you can't always be certain what humans will do.
Video games are games: they have rules and win conditions (or at least, end conditions). The Matrix isn't a game, it's a simulation to trap people inside forever.

And who says you need to simulate things no one looks at? That's how you do it in computer games, you render what the player is looking at. Everything else is just very simplified simulation sitting quietly in background until PC bothers to look at it. Your realism just needs to be good enough, not perfect.

Yes and the "good enough" is still an incredibly humungous task, especially if your precision parameters are to be greater than that of human senses. The more convincingly you want to making something simulated on a computer the exponentially more complex that task becomes. Reaching the point where the all human senses are completely fooled is not just climbing a mountain, it's reaching a mountain on another planet in a different solar system.

And here's the thing: the movies show that the Matrix takes place show that the Matrix isn't a simplified version of reality. For the most part it tries to be as close to reality as possible. There are surely optimizations and such in place, but the usual facade video games put out is not possible here. What a human will do next is the entire range of what a human body is capable of doing. That's pretty big range and you have limited short-cuts.

Even then, there are errors. That's one of the points of the movies: the Matrix isn't a perfect simulation. People notice it and become aware of it. One of the animatrixes even go out to show a place where the Matrix got wonky and humans more than noticed it.

Computers are very good at taking input design and brute-forcing it through millions of iterations with small changes to make evolved, better product. It does not mean they're good at creating optimized input. Regardless of how well AI works, human brain might still have some quality or task it's just better at, making it useful to machines.

We are not talking about just regular blind-idiot computers, we are talking about sentient machines that can and have built more advanced machines than humans have. It is one of the plot points of the movies is that the machines are smarter than humans. I think it is safe to assume that they are not limited on brute-force-based problem solving.

Whether it can do some things it can't do or does it ineffectively compared to a human brain depends on what you assume the AI works. For all we know the things the human brain is most apt at is not useful for the machines.

To reference what had been said before - what if physics we see are consequences of machines simply not bothering with accurate simulations? Light interference being just lazy light simulation? Uncertainty principle being computing power saver? Etcetera, you'd still be able to have internally consistent physics as computers would always calculate in the same way, it could look complex, but it would be really simple computationally inside. In fact whole modern cryptography relies on that.

How does this relate to the idea that the machines would use human programmers? Because you are going into a philosophical problem.

Also, just because something is computationally simple does not mean that it isn't a complex or difficult problem. In fact, the more complex the mathematical model the more complex the program that runs it. Computationally it is just reduced to simple operations a processor can do one after another.