If you mean "once in a thousand times an LLM will do something absolutely stupid" then I agree, but the exact same applies to human beings. In general LLMs show excellent understanding of the context and actual intents, they're completely different from our stereotype of blind algorithmic intelligence.

Btw, were you using codex by any chance? There was a discussion a few days ago where people reported that it follows instruction in an extremely literal fashion, sometimes to absurd outcomes such as the one you describe.

The paperclip idea does not require that AI screws up every time. It's enough for AI to screw up once in a hundred million times. In fact, if we give AIs enough power, it's enough if it screws up only one single time.

The fact that LLMs do it once in a thousand times is absolutely terrible odds. And in my experience, it's closer to 1 in 50.