[Jerrrrrrry]

It's not provable, as it's not technically required, but your intuition is good.

Intelligence is the ability to use multiple ways to acquire a target.

  >(un-/self-)supervised learning

this is the only part to not confused; there is no 'self', just a selective condition that emulates self-preservation.

All that is needed is a loop, a target, and space/time/energy. It either gets smarter, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, we unplug it. If it does, it unplugs us.