(AI Solves Physics and limits intelligence growth)

Wouldn't the second case only be a failure if the AI concludes wrongly? If we are living in such a simulation, what would be the alternative?

The most obvious alternative is to memory-bank all intelligence in the universe (or network it for the AI's use), and have the AI consume up the equivalent remaining amount of intelligence up to just before the noise threshold, then put all that intelligence towards finding a way to escape the box.

So yeah. Still a failure.