You're right, it is speculation, and initially it would likely be no better than human influence.

However limited improvement itself should be able to be written into code that at the very least is given the parameters to analyze and choose between the better options.

The AI that goes into deep faking, image generation, and now video generation is essentially taking different variables and applying them to the outcome through a set of instructions.

So it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility to program a system that can choose between fewer options with a given understanding that each variable outcome has with it an improvement of some sort.

That improvement could alter the speed at which its calculating projections or increasing it's database.

Call it handholding self-improvement to begin. I would like to think over time one could "speculate" that an increasingly complex system is capable of these very limited conditions.