Lets assume we develop the capacity to create virtual worlds that are near indistinguishable from the real world. We hook you up into a machine and you now find yourself in what effectively is a paraller reality where you get to be the king of your own universe (if you so desire). Nothing is off limits - everything you’ve ever dreamt of is possible. You can be the only person there, you can populate it with unconscious AI that appears consciouss or you can have other people visit your world and you can visit theirs aswell as spend time in “public worlds” with millions of other real people.
Would you try it and do you think you’d prefer it over real world? Do you see it as a negative from individual perspective if significant part of the population basically spend their entire lives there?
There would be a huge downside in the real world.
The real world would seem dull, boring and depressing. As you cannot have that rich experience as in that virtual world.
A bit like drugs. It would create a dependence which would increase indefinitely until it would be extremely hard to live anything in the real world.
It’s not obvious to me that this would be a downside. Real world already is dull and depressing to many people. If they can be happy in the virtual world then that seems like an improvement to the status quo