Ugh. The former, I guess. :-)
If Clippy has in fact made all those claims, then my estimate that Clippy is real and truthful drops below my personal Minimum Meaningful Probability -- I would doubt the evidence of my senses before accepting that conclusion.
What about the fact that Clippy displays intelligence at precisely the level of a smart human? Regardless of any technological considerations, it seems vanishingly unlikely to me that any machine intelligence would ever exactly match human capabilities. As soon as machines become capable of human-level performance at any task, they inevitably become far better at it than humans in a very short time. (Can anyone name a single exception to this rule in any area of technology?)
So, unless Clippy has some reason to contrive his writings carefully and duplicitously to look as plausible output of a human, the fact that he comes off as having human-level smarts is conclusive evidence that he indeed is one.
Some research says that lurkers make up over 90% of online groups. I suspect that Less Wrong has an even higher percentage of lurkers than other online communities.
Please post a comment in this thread saying "Hi." You can say more if you want, but just posting "Hi" is good for a guaranteed free point of karma.
Also see the introduction thread.