That could be scary. An artificially intelligent organism that prides its self-preservation more than everything else (like Homo sapiens). Even if an intelligent being were to be motivated by a desire of self-preservation above all else, all it can use for self-preservation is in the universe it experiences. A lower-dimensional being can thus be controlled by limiting the size of their universe and blaming the consumption of all in the universe on itself (safe simulacra)
A worm on a finite disconnected computer. Inspired from the biological worm. In a world of books. If its survival is dependent on knowledge it consumes as it battles its way to stay alive, the worm that survives from a collection of randomly initialized worms is alive. Because that’s what you select for, the definition of “alive” so that’s what you get from a random collection. ChatGPT on a small computer with certain questions?