In context, I took it to predict something like "Above a certain limit, as a system becomes more intelligent and thus more able to discern the true nature of existence, it will become less able to motivate itself to achieve goals."

I'm trying to figure out what this statement means.

You can't. We live in an intrinsically meaningless universe, where all statements are intrinsically meaningless. :-)

I'm not sure it's a bug if "all existence is meaningless" turns out to be meaningless.