Re: “there is a whole body of work which shows that evolved systems are often power-seeking”—anything in particular you have in mind here?
For AI specific work, the work by Alex Turner mentioned elsewhere in this comment section comes to mind, as backing up a much larger body of reasoning-by-analogy work, like Omohundro (2008). But the main thing I had in mind when making that comment, frankly, was the extensive literature on kings and empires. In broader biology, many genomes/organisms (bacteria, plants, etc) will also tend to expand to consume all available resources, if you put them in an environment where they can, e.g. without balancing predators.
For AI specific work, the work by Alex Turner mentioned elsewhere in this comment section comes to mind, as backing up a much larger body of reasoning-by-analogy work, like Omohundro (2008). But the main thing I had in mind when making that comment, frankly, was the extensive literature on kings and empires. In broader biology, many genomes/organisms (bacteria, plants, etc) will also tend to expand to consume all available resources, if you put them in an environment where they can, e.g. without balancing predators.