This is contradicted by the fact that, throughout history, there have been tons of rich people who not even once had to do laundry or any other menial tasks.

Many of them were interested in art or produced it. And many led fulfilling lives without getting depressed from not working as some people fear.

Ok yes very good point you're right. What often happened in the olden times was that science took the shape of art, or religious or ideological conviction drove tireless creation.

Let's say science is left to the robots and the lack of "laundry" never leads to people's suffering, never leads to people asking the big questions about life, etc (I was making big assumptions about AI-keeps-us-as-pets, life in abundance, lack of common threats or conflicts etc). What art is there to create, sans banana stuck to the wall? Somebody in the thread joked about being fed through a tube in a pod or something

But yeah in such a case there will probably still be some fire art about the alienation implied by merely being a human. In the end, no AI can experience being a human that was replaced by AI. Given the vestigial remains of our by then atrophied intelligence can appreciate it

Selection bias, and few are smart and talented enough to become successful artists or scientists. Money cannot buy that.

There are people who inherited significant wealth and it ruined them. It destroyed their motivation and they became depressed drug addicts. A life without purpose. Debauchery and depression.

Well the difference is those rich people didn't have to work for money, so had the time and energy to devote to those passions

I'm not sure what society would look like if and when AI takes over all artistic and creative work. People that would otherwise have a fulfilling career pushed to do menial tasks just to earn an income?