I don't know what to tell you, but there simply are huge differences between a living animal with innate drives to survive, eat, mate and a pile of code on a server that does nothing until you run it. Running your bot locked in a `while True:` loop won't change that.
What if it's a chip that goes in the head of a robot, and the robot is programmed with the instruction to self-preserve, seek electricity, and prevent any efforts to interfere with its supply of electricity?
Of course, a directive to accomplish any real-world goal would also imply self-preservation and power maintenance as contingent subgoals, so I don't think the explicit directive to self-preserve and seek electricity makes a huge difference here.
I don't personally think this type of physical instantiation will necessarily matter btw: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/07/no-physical-substrate-... I'm just plumbing your intuition. What practical difference does it make?