Aliens aren't necessarily anything like us. Curiosity isn't necessarily a property of life. An example: cats don't appear to experience remorse, yet dogs do. One could envision the same for curiosity.
One motivation for a space program is when a civilization realizes their resources will be gone in a matter of centuries.
A paperclip maximizer is indifferent to your existence, but thoroughly believes that it could make better use of your planet than you could, as you are hardly optimized for the production of paperclips.
Thus TFA is correct.
But you are falling into a anthroporeligio trap of assuming the Paperclip Maximizer considers potential paperclips in their uncoiled wire form to have comparable moral status as actual paperclips, once the wire reaches the factory floor.
How is this specific choice of example any good, or makes any sense?
Second, curiosity is prevalent all around advanced animals, mammals etc. Seems like an emergent property of evolution, that would be hard to not come out in any evolutionary process.
Yes, we're talking about aliens that ARE like us here. Not some alien bacteria.
As far as evolution is concerned, it should work pretty much the same in any planet, and produce more or less similar results.