In aviation the pilot is king or queen and can override automatic functions (a violation of that not long ago demonstrated the wisdom). But there was a case where it is believed that a pilot purposefully flew a commercial aircraft into the ground. Could "no, I can't let you do that" be implemented? Yes, it could but mistrust of computers is greater than mistrust of pilots.

How can self-modifying code be certified when safety of human life requires it? It could already be happening in areas I have no visibility to and there are valid arguments in some applications for crowning the computer king, but I am very afraid of that for reasons I don't need to describe to you.

You may have read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream

I can't remember when I first played with that game of life. I think it was with a Commodore 64. I didn't think about it being a case of cellular automata, but now that you mention it...