We are no longer designing an AI from scratch and then implementing it; we are creating a seed program which learns from the situation and alters its own code with no human intervention, i.e. the machines are starting to write themselves, e.g. with google's deepmind.

Arguably, not knowing in detail how your creation works is a detriment, not a boon. This point has been raised multiple times, most recently by Bostrom in Superintelligence, I believe. Consider reading it.