Seed AIs are rather common (as villians or saviours) in speculative transhuman fiction. My favourite example is probably the Minds from the Culture novels by Iain M Banks. A major issue that rises, however, is the 'paperclip optimizer', an AI that does continually and recursively improve itself and the manner in which it does its job, but develops in a way so alien that it takes a path completely uncontemplated (and possibly rather harmful to) the creator.
There is a lot of material out there, philosophical, scientific and speculative; All three subjects are worth reading if you're going to start dipping your hands into such work.
Some additional literature some might enjoy (beware of wikiwalk effect!)
http://singinst.org/ourresearch/publica ... GISAI.html <A rundown of General Artificial Intelligences and Seed AIs
http://singinst.org/upload/LOGI//index.html <The more academically oriented sibling paper of the above
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... m=Main.AIs <TVTropes entry on AIs, a site that takes "tropes" (themes that occur over many forms of media) and explains, links, and gives examples of them.
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
Deus est Machinae, ex Nihil; Tu Deo.