Call me crazy if you like, but I'm not drawing on science fiction for any of this. I had a really intense conversation with someone who firmly and fully believes in the capabilities and benifits of AI, and that conversation is where most of my reference comes from. Self-modifying code is super unstable in my opinion, if it can change without any moderation then there are no limits. Murphy's law: What can go wrong WILL go wrong. Even if there ARE limits, then you know the developers just make it show you targeted ads and tell you to buy their software. Who wouldn't, it's job security.
Maybe the knife analogy was overkill, so just forget that. I really wanted to make a point and got carried away.
Terminator was actually a really bad movie in my opinion. Also note that I said "From what I know." If you know differently feel free to correct me, but don't insult my intelligence. Take everything in this discussion board with a grain of salt.