I'd guess that GoL and Cellular Automaton Theory preceded and inspired rule 30 etc. So, maybe the architects implied metarecursion, that GoL metaphorically generated rule 30.

GoL is Turing complete. I guess that means there is a starting condition that converges to a rule30 cellular automaton.

edit: video of GoL emulated inside a turing machine in GoL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 (link replaced)