Any unbounded goal in the vein of ‘Maximize concentration of in this area’ has local scope but potentially unbounded expenditure necessary.
Also, as has been pointed out for general satisficing goals (which most naturally local-scale goals will be); acquiring more resources lets you do the thing more to maximize the chances that you have properly satisfied your goal. Even if the target is easy to hit, being increasingly certain that you’ve hit it can use arbitrary amounts of resource.
Alternatively, a weapon-AI builds a dyson sphere, preventing any light from the star from escaping, eliminating the risk of a more advanced outside AI (which it can reason about much better than we can) from destroying it.
Any unbounded goal in the vein of ‘Maximize concentration of in this area’ has local scope but potentially unbounded expenditure necessary.
Also, as has been pointed out for general satisficing goals (which most naturally local-scale goals will be); acquiring more resources lets you do the thing more to maximize the chances that you have properly satisfied your goal. Even if the target is easy to hit, being increasingly certain that you’ve hit it can use arbitrary amounts of resource.
Both good points, thank you.
Alternatively, a weapon-AI builds a dyson sphere, preventing any light from the star from escaping, eliminating the risk of a more advanced outside AI (which it can reason about much better than we can) from destroying it.
Or a poor planet-local AI does the same thing.