I'm aware of the culture series, but never read any of it (I'm not a big fiction reader). That book sounds super interesting though so thank you for the recommendation – I may try to give it a go.
Artificial hells are something I'm very afraid of, and specifically the scenario of being able to prevent someone's death and torture them in ways our physical environment or physical bodies would not permit.
I've argued before if technology ever permits this then people should strongly consider whether continuing to live is worth the risk of one day being subjected to such a fate. Concerningly it seems to me the preferable thing to do once this technology exists is to kill yourself and everyone you care about in a way that maximises the probability that you, and they, will never be revived either physically or digitally.
RSI and ASI could make this a reality much quicker than we anticipate. Versions of the near-future in which this technology is frequently used against humans is an AI doom scenario which imo is very under priced. People talk a lot about existential risk, but AI simply killing us is one of the better outcomes. RSI and ASI in theory should grant us (or the AIs) a full tech-tree unlock, and there's many technologies out there which are worse than those which might merely be able to kill us all.
I worry when I talk about stuff like this people think I'm a crazy person. Hopefully you don't think that.