Some of the world’s most powerful forces in technology are convinced we’re living in a computer simulation, and they’re funding scientists to break us out.

According to The New Yorker, there are two billionaires, who have made their money in technology, funding the efforts to restore reality.

“Many people in Silicon Valley have become obsessed with the simulation hypothesis, the argument that what we experience as reality is in fact fabricated in a computer; two tech billionaires have gone so far as to secretly engage scientists to work on breaking us out of the simulation,” Ted Friend wrote.

It’s not the first revelation that we’re living in the Matrix: Elon Musk, a businessman who has invested in creating human colonies on Mars and reducing the risk of human extinction, claimed there’s only a “one in billions” chance we’re not in an artificial world.

Analysts at the Bank of America also claimed that there’s up to 50 per cent chance we’re living in virtual reality. “Many scientists, philosophers, and business leaders believe that there is a 20-50 per cent probability that humans are already living in a computer-simulated virtual world,” detailed the Bank of America Merrill Lynch report. “In April 2016, researchers gathered at the American Museum of Natural History to debate this notion. The argument is that we are already approaching photorealistic 3D simulations that millions of people can simultaneously participate in. It is conceivable that with advancements in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and computing power, members of future civilizations could have decided to run a simulation of their ancestors.”

Neither of the two billionaires was named in the piece. The information originally came to Friend in the New Yorker interview with Y Combinator president Sam Altman.

In the profile, Altman said: “These phones already control us. The merge has begun—and a merge is our best scenario. Any version without a merge will have conflict: we enslave the AI or it enslaves us. The full-on-crazy version of the merge is we get our brains uploaded into the cloud. I'd love that.”

“We need to level up humans, because our descendants will either conquer the galaxy or extinguish consciousness in the universe forever. What a time to be alive!”