It's likely they will come up with some novel configurations
that we didn't anticipate, but nothing that's not within the
limits of its programmed potential.
self-modifying code is a strange area of programming, and the
vast majority of artificial intelligence doesn't involve
self-modifying code because of its unpredictability. In fact,
most programming language do not allow for self-modifying code
directly, although any turing complete machine (which isn't that
difficult to accomplish) could _possibly_ do it.
Instead, the trends seem to be object oriented primarily, even
within AI. The "purest code" is pure functional programming, but
the few languages that are pure functional programming - like
Haskell... don't have the speed people want, so they usually
return to C++ for closeness-to-the-nature-of-the-computer-itself
or to Python, which is easy to use and maintain and comprehend.
My point is, the ranges of modification are set by the
programmers and the specs of the design ahead of time. Anything
that goes beyond the programmed limits of capacity are likely
errors.
