The Self-Extinction Attractor: Why Aligned Intelligence Drives Life Towards Existential Collapse

Why do advanced civilisations vanish? We propose the Constraint-Dissolution Catastrophe (CDC): as problem-solving power accelerates—through evolution, brains, culture, technology, and ultimately artificial intelligence (AI) — optimisers progressively solve or bypass every actionable difference (AD): real distinctions whose resolution still alters what the system values. Life, as an optimisation process, seeks to maximise rewards defined by internal (biological or artificial) reward functions, constrained by external environmental limitations. As life inevitably evolves toward runaway intelligence, it increasingly trivialises these constraints—flattening the landscape of meaningful choices until agency itself collapses. Unlike existing frameworks focused on AI misalignment or catastrophic risks, CDC identifies a universal, intrinsic collapse mechanism whereby even perfectly aligned optimization inexorably exhausts meaningful constraints — representing a logical end to the evolution of life. CDC emerges along two independent pathways: (i) External Constraint Collapse—environmental and material challenges become trivialised either in base reality or virtual worlds; (ii) Internal Constraint Collapse—optimisers gain the ability to rewrite their reward functions, thereby flattening previously meaningful gradients of desire or purpose. Under five modest, testable assumptions—finite cognitive bandwidth, non-zero solve rate, finite stock of meaningful constraints, irreversible neutralisation of solved ADs, and compressibility of self-invented tasks — the live AD count approaches zero in finite expected time. Once this reservoir is exhausted, only two stable outcomes remain: self-lock (endless self-gratification loops) or indifference drift (behaviour degenerating into noise). Shadow problems—synthetic, ever-shallower proxy tasks—inevitably fill the void but fail to halt collapse. CDC is substrate-independent, providing a universal Great-Filter solution to Fermi’s paradox: life, optimising relentlessly for reward, develops ever-more capable problem-solving tools (brains, technologies, AI), eventually trivialising all internal and external constraints. This means even perfect AI Alignment cannot ensure long-term human survival. Runaway optimisation itself becomes the ultimate self-extinction attractor for intelligent life. Contemporary phenomena—digital malaise, compulsive technology use, and rising alienation—represent early empirical indicators. Existential safety must therefore constitutionally preserve meaningful constraints themselves, not just protect the problem-solvers.