I think curiosity and the desire to do things that work would be better as motivations than avoiding boredom.
Do you have any speculations about why evolution apparently disagrees?
No, but it's quite an interesting question. Evolution does go in for sticks as well as carrots, even though punishment has non-obvious costs among humans.
When I made my comment, I hadn't read the interview. I'm not sure about Eliezer's worst case scenario from lack of boredom-- it requires that there be a best moment which the AI would keep repeating if it weren't prevented by boredom. Is there potentially a best moment to tile the universe with? Could an AI be sure it had found the best moment?
It makes for good Less Wrong introductory material to point people to, since there are lots of people who won't read long article online but will listen to a podcast on the way to work: LINK.
Apologies for the self-promotion, but it could hardly be more relevant to Less Wrong...