Programming a computer to reliably make lots of diamonds (or paperclips) is not creating Clippy for the same reason that programming Google Maps to produce the shortest distance between two locations is not creating Clippy.

Ok, but that makes Nate's statement very confusing. We already understand, "up to" R&D effort, how to program computers to use various peripherals to perform a task in the physical world without intelligence, using fixed methods. I'm left confused at what industrial automation has to do with AI alignment research.