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?

Potentially but I would say it will depend on who develops it whether this is something they want to progress or not.

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.

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.

Another thing is that I'm pretty sure that we will all end up equally useless eventually

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.