Odyssey CEO Oliver Cameron is 90% sure we live in a simulation | E2358
Shownotes
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Today’s show:
Odyssey co-founder and CEO Oliver Cameron builds simulated worlds for a living, so we asked him the obvious question: are we all living in one, right now? He says he’s 90% certain that, yes, we are.
To help make the case (and show off their world model technology), Oliver’s team dropped a simulated fruit fly brain into an AI world, that’s being rendered and created in real time. So far, on X, 6.2 million people have watched the virtual fly navigate an imaginary world.
On TWiST, we’re digging into how world models learn about physics, gravity, and causality just by watching videos, what make Odyssey-3 an ideal trainig ground for AI agents, and why a world model only renders the parts of the world that are currently being experienced.
It’s a peek inside the technology that may, one day, allow us to enslave people in The Matrix and turn them into batteries. Or train self-driving cars more effectively! One of those.
Plus: SpaceX throttles Grok Bot over unsustainably high costs, but Jason says it’s worth every penny. And will OpenAI’s suggested name change from data centers to “compute campuses,” and Meta’s efforts to improve El Paso, help turn around American attitudes? Or is blasting them into space the only remaining viable option?
Guest
Oliver Cameron on X: https://x.com/olivercameron
Odyssey: https://odyssey.systems/
Relevant Links
The fruit fly brain flying inside Odyssey-3 (6.2M views): https://x.com/odysseyml/status/2111589148146749616
Meet Odyssey-3, Odyssey's foundation world model: https://odyssey.systems/meet-odyssey-3
FlyWire: https://flywire.ai/
Nick Bostrom, "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”: https://simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf
Do we live in a simulation? Chances are about 50-50 (Scientific American): https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/
"Beyond Perception: Proposing Our Reality as an ASI Alignment Simulation" (Ali Eslami, IPI Letters): https://ipipublishing.org/index.php/ipil/article/view/350
The double-slit experiment explained (Royal Institution, Jim Al-Khalili): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9tKncAdlHQ
“A Glitch in the Matrix” trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au8eT79WUJ0
Elon Musk throttles Grok Bot limits over "unsustainably high" costs (TechCrunch): https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/02/elon-musk-throttles-grok-bot-limits-due-to-unsustainably-high-costs/
Elon's post: "The cost of serving Grok Bot was unsustainably high relative to revenue”: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2116992258520064397
Jason's post: "< $40k a year on tokens… getting $2m+ in value": https://x.com/Jason/status/2117126320962351277
Grok Bot: https://x.ai/bot
Plaud Web: https://web.plaud.ai
Founder University Japan: https://japan.founder.university/
Most Americans say AI is bad for society and oppose more data centers (ABC/WaPo/Ipsos): https://abc7ny.com/story/most-americans-say-ai-is-bad-society-oppose-more-data-centers-abcpostipsos-poll/19964027/
Chris Lehane's memo: AI will be the issue in 2028 (TNW): https://thenextweb.com/news/chris-lehane-memo-openai-2028-ai-election
Meta touts El Paso water and grid pledges as council weighs incentives (KFOX): https://kfoxtv.com/news/local/meta-touts-10b-el-paso-data-center-water-and-grid-pledges-as-council-weighs-incentives
UT Austin's Texas Advance Commitment (free tuition under $100K): https://admissions.utexas.edu/cost-aid/financial-aid/texas-advance-commitment/
Andrej Karpathy's HackerTube post: https://x.com/karpathy/status/2116957135661945283
Jason's "Unsponsored" Chrome extension for Amazon: https://x.com/Jason/status/2116380861167714594
Google's first data center satellite is online and writing poetry (TechCrunch): https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/30/googles-first-data-center-satellite-is-online-and-writing-poetry/
What is low Earth orbit? (Universe Today): https://www.universetoday.com/articles/what-is-low-earth-orbit
Timestamps:
0:00 Grok Bot users are at their limit
3:36 How Jason and LAUNCH get $2M+ in value out of AI
5:46 Jason’s Grok-made jacket lookbook
10:35 Paper is the legal backbone for thousands of startup founders and fund managers - including Jason. Use https://getpaper.ai/twist to get your cap table free for a year - or two years if you're leaving Carta.
14:12 Everything changed in AI over the last 90 days
20:41 G2i has been recruiting software engineers for over a decade. Go to https://g2i.co/twist to find out how G2i vets engineers, and can help you hire them in days, not weeks.
22:06 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations - interviews, meetings, calls - you need a Plaud NotePin S. You can check it out at https://plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!
22:37 Wiring our Plaud into our Grok Bot
23:24 Odyssey’s fruit fly video zooms to 6.2M views
27:32 All About Simulation Theory
34:34 Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain
38:33 What is the double slit experiment?
40:47 How to teach a robot about physics
50:01 OpenAI’s plan to make Americans love data centers
56:53 Meta’s El Paso data center pitch
1:02:26 AI companies should overfund local schools
1:06:27 Karpathy’s HackerTube project
1:13:02 Google’s first space data center goes online
1:17:51 How much room is there in low Earth orbit?
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