>People who don't get addicted to chemical drugs don't get addicted because they have things in their lives (rewarding work, good relationships/sex, religion and other forms of self actualization) which gives them dopamine triggers that are more enjoyable than the drug.

That sounds like something you should back up with unambiguous evidence.

I urge you to look up that evidence for yourself, it is easily found. There is both empirical evidence, from e.g. rats, and sociological experiments, from rehab centers.

Also, I reject your use of "unambiguous". Ambiguity is a given, we're not discussing a mathematical proof here.

The research I've seen suggests that rats and other creatures will give up everything you listed for another hit of the right drug.

I seem to remember a study that attributed this behavior to the captive environment of the subjects (rats), and once the environment was changed, they weaned off on their own. Can't find it right now, but will keep looking.

Edit: sibling post found it, apparently its results couldn't be replicated :/

Rat park was a replication, it was inspired by disregarded evidence of soldiers returning from war.

Most Soldiers who were using 'addictive' drugs simply gave them up when returning home.

A small but constant percentage didn't ~3-5% - Alexander postulated that these types will become addicted to something and it was genotype & circumstance that led to addictive behaviours not the drugs themselves being chemically addictive.

Bruce Alexander has stated that this evidence led him to try to confirm it with his Rat Park experiment.

He plainly showed it was the inhuman conditions that led rats to kill themselves with drugs, well performed, proper controls.

Flew in the face of the prevailing orthodoxy and the political capital of the drug war boogeyman - so no funding for replication. Career suicide to replicate it back then.

It is pretty obviously true, there is hardly a human activity without an associated -oholicism.

Not necessarily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Well written answer but there's a contradiction in what you're saying. You say: "Maybe you still get a feeling of reward from relationships with other people, but more likely the AI is better at relationships than you are, and most people in the world only have relationships with instances of the AI because that is more rewarding."

And your conclusion is that the result of this will be that people will get addicted on drugs rather than seeking relationships with other people. But you just said that most people will have relationships with instances of AI instead. So people will not get addicted on drugs, they will just have amazingly happy relationships with uber social AI instances.

A less pessimistic view on the future would be not a divergence of humans and AI/computers but a co-development. If we can merge we might be able to keep up.

I know a lot of people who hate or are ambivalant their jobs, have bad or no relationships/sex, and are not drug addicts or even recreational users.