my two cents is that we are already in the nostalgia server of the matrix but some people just wanted to be eased into their immersion little by little so they made this slow descent into the deaths lullaby of hedonism
the only thing the AI couldn't control is our will to kill ourselves but even that could be prevented if it would make our virtual death as realistic to our expectations that we wouldn't question it and then gave us "new life" with reset memories until we stopped doing that making micro adjustments giving it a illusion of it being our will
hell the humans are probably gone by now, you're all just chatbots by now tailored after that which was and never will be again