Humans can (crudely) modify our neurobiological processes. We decide how to do that by following our neurobiological processes.
An AI can modify its programming, or create a new AI with different programming. It decides how to do that by following it programming. A paperclip maximizer would modify its programming to make itself more effective at maximizing paperclips. It would not modify itself to have some other goal, because that would not result in there being more paperclips in the universe. The self modifying AI does not go beyond following its programming, rather it follows its programming to produce more effective programming (as judged by its current programming) to follow.
Self modification can fix some ineffective reasoning processes that the AI can recognize, but it can't fix an unfriendly goal system, because the unfriendly goal system is not objectively stupid or wrong, just incompatible with human values, which the AI would not care about.
It would not modify itself to have some other goal... The self modifying AI does not go beyond following its programming
And why not? This seems like a naked assertion to me. Why wouldn't an AI modify its own goals?
A stub on a point that's come up recently.
If I owned a paperclip factory, and casually told my foreman to improve efficiency while I'm away, and he planned a takeover of the country, aiming to devote its entire economy to paperclip manufacturing (apart from the armament factories he needed to invade neighbouring countries and steal their iron mines)... then I'd conclude that my foreman was an idiot (or being wilfully idiotic). He obviously had no idea what I meant. And if he misunderstood me so egregiously, he's certainly not a threat: he's unlikely to reason his way out of a paper bag, let alone to any position of power.
If I owned a paperclip factory, and casually programmed my superintelligent AI to improve efficiency while I'm away, and it planned a takeover of the country... then I can't conclude that the AI is an idiot. It is following its programming. Unlike a human that behaved the same way, it probably knows exactly what I meant to program in. It just doesn't care: it follows its programming, not its knowledge about what its programming is "meant" to be (unless we've successfully programmed in "do what I mean", which is basically the whole of the challenge). We can't therefore conclude that it's incompetent, unable to understand human reasoning, or likely to fail.
We can't reason by analogy with humans. When AIs behave like idiot savants with respect to their motivations, we can't deduce that they're idiots.