there was a cool theory of life offspin recently
the idea of the new part is that living beings like humans have an infinite set of needs only some of which are known. it's infinite because the future is unknown, we see no bound to possible diversity in futures people pursue so we exist meeting many needs already with our bodies, our minds and communities work to meet needs our bodies haven't adapted to, etc, and new needs will be found during the course of our lives and cultures and more will be found in the future
meanwhile cobtrolling systems and paperclip factory AIs have specific things they pursue (in my situation) often in excess
so a blind, preprogrammed process that can't adjust it's own rules will _always eventually fail--
[because it ends up not doing what is actually needed in an unbounded system
maybe corrupt or incomplete but it also shows why empires collapse. when the rules come from top-dow--