Why would you be in poor shape if you're plugged in via a neural link all the time? If such a neural link is possible wouldn't it make sense to feed the body in the real world with only the best possible nutrition and have it exercise regularly using the same type of neural link technology that allows for full immersion into a virtual reality? The trouble with scenarios like this is that with accelerating technological development such scenarios are short-lived at best if at all likely. Any particular dystopic reality is a snapshot of a more or less potential chain of events leading to future potentials increasingly hard to even imagine.
Another thing is that I'm pretty sure that we will all end up equally useless eventually and the time it takes from a half of us having become useless to all of us having become useless is relatively short. None of us have a good reason to feel superior to those opt to fully immerse themselves into a fantasy worlds. There isn't much difference between a former pillar of society and a dreg when they're in diapers in a nursing home. That's what the future of humanity will look like: a giant nursing home for the entire species. Babies will be born straight into uselessness akin to senility when everything is run by general artificial superintelligence.
Potentially but I would say it will depend on who develops it whether this is something they want to progress or not.
Any look at a moment in time is snapshot in a chain of events but it can give a look at in which direction the next link could be added. The invention and ability to harness nuclear energy didn't require Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yep, I think so too. Once the real AIs come in, there is not much we are able to do. I don't care about annihilation of our species, but there is likely even potential for enslavement or flourishing at this point. Which it is is going to depend on how they are created.