I suspect that human will doesn’t enter into it. It’s a natural kind of Matrix. Came about by forces similar to friction and gravity.

Thank you extremely fucking much. I am always looking for good scifi.

(I strongly recommend the works of Greg Egan and Sam Hughes, if you aren’t already familiar.)

There was a similar story in Heavy Metal once upon a time (illus by Corben I think). Desperate people in a nightmare maze running from monsters for years… decades. Turns out it’s all a synthetic reality for rehabilitating terrorists. When they finally pop the protag out of his sensosuit he’s introduced to an eden of lush jungles and big-tittied women. I won’t reveal the punchline.

The ultimate “AI product” will be a videogame that keeps you playing as long as possible. Indefinitely even.

Nothing so trivial.

What we’ll get is on-demand custom advertising. That Taco Bell advertisement will feature the smiling faces of your dead relatives.

I have read scifi (Bear : Blood Music, Egan : I forget) where packing enough computation into a small enough space caused reality to warp. So look out!