If the paperclipper is very, very stable, then no paperclipper is better because of higher probability of life->sentience->personhood arising again. If paperclipper is a realistic sapient system, then chances are it will evolve out of paperclipping into personhood, and then the question is whether in expectation it will evolve faster than life otherwise would. Even if by assumption personhood does not arise again, it still depends on particulars, I pick the scenario with more interesting dynamics. If by assumption even life does not arise again, paperclipper has more interesting dynamics.
What mechanism would a paperclipper have for developing out of a paperclipper? If it has the terminal goal of increasing paperclips, then it will never self-modify to anything that will result in it creating less paperclips, even if under its new utility function it wouldn't care about that.
Or: If A -> B -> C, and the paperclipper does not want C, then paperclipper will not go to B.
Thought experiment:
Through whatever accident of history underlies these philosophical dilemmas, you are faced with a choice between two, and only two, mutually exclusive options:
* Choose A, and all life and sapience in the solar system (and presumably the universe), save for a sapient paperclipping AI, dies.
* Choose B, and all life and sapience in the solar system, including the paperclipping AI, dies.
Phrased another way: does the existence of any intelligence at all, even a paperclipper, have even the smallest amount of utility above no intelligence at all?
If anyone responds positively, subsequent questions would be which would be preferred, a paperclipper or a single bacteria; a paperclipper or a self-sustaining population of trilobites and their supporting ecology; a paperclipper or a self-sustaining population of australopithecines; and so forth, until the equivalent value is determined.