The Golden Age of (Computational) Simulation

Abstract

Computational simulations are about to enter an unexpectedly prosperous golden era. The advent of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is causing an emergent inflationary moment of machine simulations (words, images, tasks, and so on). This is a surprising, new ‘catalogue of the real’ that requires sophisticated technical and philosophical investigations.
This short essay investigates the issue of this emerging simulative landscape culturally focusing on three prevalent expressions of contemporary computational simulations (texts, images, behaviors). Our exploration shows how both the novelty and the complexity of the machinical simulation evokes a new onto-epistemic power and vector: from the epistemological approximation to the reality to the ontological recreation of the real. The aim of this non-exhaustive cultural excursus is to emphasizes the urgent need to re-examine the morphing meaning that the philosophical question of simulation is rapidly gaining as a result of the generative artificial intelligence revolution.