But you have banned most of the means of approximating the experience of living such a life, no? In a general case you wouldn't be justified in your claim (where by general case I mean the situation where I have strong doubts you know the other entity, not the case of "the" paperclipper). Do you have a proof that having a single terminal value excludes having a rich structure of instrumental values? Or does the way you experience terminal values overwhelm the way you experience instrumental values?
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.