The Wachowskis wanted the object Morpheus held up to represent AI's use for mankind to be a microprocessor, but they didn't think it would be recognizable enough, so they just went with a battery
ughhghghh that would have made so much more sense and quashed all of the stupid pedantic arguments about how unreasonable the exploitation in the matrix is with conservation of energy
They kind of fix it in the sequel by saying that the matrix is using human brainpower to balance the operation of some kind of fusion power plant, and without the massive number of humans embedded in the matrix the machines can't keep their fusion generators working. It makes slightly more sense than batteries.
Also in defense of the Wachowskis i've heard they wanted to do "the machines are using humans to do computing" but they were shot down by executive meddling.
The Wachowskis wanted the object Morpheus held up to represent AI's use for mankind to be a microprocessor, but they didn't think it would be recognizable enough, so they just went with a battery
ughhghghh that would have made so much more sense and quashed all of the stupid pedantic arguments about how unreasonable the exploitation in the matrix is with conservation of energy
They kind of fix it in the sequel by saying that the matrix is using human brainpower to balance the operation of some kind of fusion power plant, and without the massive number of humans embedded in the matrix the machines can't keep their fusion generators working. It makes slightly more sense than batteries.
Also in defense of the Wachowskis i've heard they wanted to do "the machines are using humans to do computing" but they were shot down by executive meddling.