If you think you're being simulated, then you need to predict what kinds and amounts of simulations exist besides the one you're in, as well as how extensive and precise your own simulation is in past time and space, not just in its future.
I don't see why simulated observers would almost ever outnumber physical observers. It would need an incredibly inefficient allocation of resources.
There are lots of reasons other than the DA to think we're being simulated: e.g. Bostrom's Simulation Argument (posthumans are likely to run ancestor simulations).
Avoiding the DA gives them a much clearer motive. It's the only reason I can think of that I would want to do it. Surely it's at least worth considering?
I don't see why simulated observers would almost ever outnumber physical observers. It would need an incredibly inefficient allocation of resources.
The question isn't how many simulated observers exist in total (although that's also unknown), but how many of them are like you in some relevant sense, i.e. what to consider "typical".
Avoiding the DA gives them a much clearer motive. It's the only reason I can think of that I would want to do it. Surely it's at least worth considering?
Many people do think they would have other reasons to run a...
A self-modifying AI is built to serve humanity. The builders know, of course, that this is much riskier than it seems, because its success would render their own observations extremely rare. To solve the problem, they direct the AI to create billions of simulated humanities in the hope that this will serve as a Schelling point to them, and make their own universe almost certainly simulated.
Plausible?