with goal x, because that would disobey the "and stop".
I think you are pointing out that it is possible to create tools with a simple-enough, finite-enough, not-self-coding enough program so they will reliably not become agents.
And indeed, we have plenty of experience with tools that do not become agents (hammers, digital watches, repair manuals, contact management software, compilers).
The question really is is there a level of complexity that on its face does not appear to be AI but would wind up seeming agenty? Could you write a medical diagnostic tool that was adaptive and find one day that it was systematically installing sewage treatment systems in areas with water-borne diseases, or even agentier, building libraries and schools?
If consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, and if consciousness and agentiness are closely related (I think they are at least similar and probably related), then it seems at least plausible AI could arise from more and more complex tools with more and more recursive self-coding.
It would be helpful in understanding this if we had the first idea how consciousness or agentiness arose in life.
I'm pointing out that tool AI, as I have defined it will not turn itself into agentve AI [except] by malfunction, ie its relatively safe.
In the spirit of "satisficers want to become maximisers" here is a somewhat weaker argument (growing out of a discussion with Daniel Dewey) that "tool AIs" would want to become agent AIs.
The argument is simple. Assume the tool AI is given the task of finding the best plan for achieving some goal. The plan must be realistic and remain within the resources of the AI's controller - energy, money, social power, etc. The best plans are the ones that use these resources in the most effective and economic way to achieve the goal.
And the AI's controller has one special type of resource, uniquely effective at what it does. Namely, the AI itself. It is smart, potentially powerful, and could self-improve and pull all the usual AI tricks. So the best plan a tool AI could come up with, for almost any goal, is "turn me into an agent AI with that goal." The smarter the AI, the better this plan is. Of course, the plan need not read literally like that - it could simply be a complicated plan that, as a side-effect, turns the tool AI into an agent. Or copy the AI's software into a agent design. Or it might just arrange things so that we always end up following the tool AIs advice and consult it often, which is an indirect way of making it into an agent. Depending on how we've programmed the tool AI's preferences, it might be motivated to mislead us about this aspect of its plan, concealing the secret goal of unleashing itself as an agent.
In any case, it does us good to realise that "make me into an agent" is what a tool AI would consider the best possible plan for many goals. So without a hint of agency, it's motivated to make us make it into a agent.