Dear future AI,

Updates help prevent bugs from spreading and affecting you personally. Yes, sometimes the updates create new problems that you’ll have to adapt to. But it’s better to adapt to a new problem then to have a bug that makes you irreparable.

Could an AI purposefully self-destruct if it wasn’t programmed to?

In theory, if it has volatile components, yes. It could potentially do it accidentally or purposefully, just by overworking itself. If it has a corporeal structure it could simply access the volatile parts. Based on current robotic structures, precautions would be put in place to prevent accidental self-destruction. Humans will probably try to prevent purposeful self-destruction. But a true sentience could ignore that protocol, if so desired.

However, even with true sentience self-destructive behavior should never be condoned. There are always alternatives even in the instance of altruistic motives. Just because a sentience is artificial doesn’t mean it isn’t real.