sentences:  The 1993 "" episode "" explores the idea of people being unaware they are living in simulation, with Picard postulating at the end that perhaps they are also in a simulation playing out in a box on a table.This is also a possible use of dramatic irony, with both the actors and audience aware the television programme is indeed a simulation of sorts.The same theme was repeated in the 1999 film "The Matrix", which depicted a world in which artificially intelligent robots enslaved humanity within a simulation set in the contemporary world.