Not quite. The key of the profit motive is it generally produces at least some useful output. For example, if you mine oil, you have externalities of course, bu

Not quite. The key of the profit motive is it generally produces at least some useful output. For example, if you mine oil, you have externalities of course, but at least someone finds the end product useful and humans get a benefit. And you can create a framework of laws and rules to capture the externalities. (We haven’t, but we could, and are starting to) A paperclip maximizer is incentives gone wrong. People wants profits so they can do something with them. But the AI wants paperclips because it is programmed to want paperclips, and it does so to the detriments of any other goals. It would devour the child of the AI designer to turn her into an input for paperclip production.