the experience machine only seems to be a quandary if one accepts hedonism as a coherent philosophy; it is trivially resolvable with an examination of values and some understanding of cybernetics. the machine is effectively a reward system hijacker, an adversarial generator.
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RT @Merryweatherey
I wrote a comic about the fate of humanity!
https://twitter.com/Merryweatherey/status/1185636106257211392

as such, it functions by feeding your reward system inputs which seemingly satisfy its value function, causing it to reinforce the behaviors which presumably generated those inputs, in the form of pleasure. ofc, there are no such behaviors; your reward system is being hacked

if our brains were simple static systems, that would be it; luckily for us, this isnt so, as they're in reality complex cybernetic control systems which continuously observe reality, measure its delta from the desired state, generate plans of action & coordinate execution thereof

this is known as the OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, and act. commonly used in strategic planning, such as by militaries, but it's a useful concept when modeling any agentic system. the experience machine seeks to "get inside ones OODA loop", totally controlling the system

it is critical for any system desiring to maintain its agency to devote resources to ensuring this ergodicity in the form of continuous introspection; an Internal Affairs dept. of sorts. when you get a nagging feeling about something & think thru why you did something, that's IA

this leads us to the experience machine's inevitable defeat by an adequately-agentic system; unless the OODA infiltrator is a relative superintelligence (able to simulate us fully), its adversarial inputs, the simulation, will eventually exhibit some flaw for IA to pick up on

at this point it sounds the alarm, triggering a priority interrupt of sorts; it's rather difficult to to maintain homeostasis in the face of an existential risk, so our control system forces our attention into alertness to evaluate the potential threat.

then, we have a choice.

the experience machine only seems a problem due to its technological veneer, but make no mistake: the choice is identical to that of the heroin user, & few would argue that the absolute pleasure of the stupor is superior to experiencing the world; those that do, become addicts.