Yeah, I agree basically, I was just disputing your claim that (all) sentient being choose their ethical codes. I mean, maybe, but sometimes it's a bit of a forced choice.
For AIs that do not reproduce sexually, who knows what that would be? Their most profitable trading partners in an economy? Those AIs whose state is most isomorphic? Or would they just recurse into their own self-interest?
Trying to hard-code a belief system into an AI would either render it non-sentient (thus mooting the point since non-sentients don't have ethical codes at all) or would simply be routed around or self-modified in one way or another.
A genuinely sentient AI would have at least as much freedom of choice about its beliefs as humans. In fact, I think there's reason to believe it may have more. Human brains are wired through biological growth processes that make old and long-lived neural connections harder to change. A fully software-based AI may not experience that constraint at all and might find itself able to completely change its mind at will at any point in its development. Such a being may experience none of our ideological inertia or tendency to cling to old beliefs. That inertia is probably another reason we tend to inherit our parents' beliefs.
I liked BSG too... although it is looooooong. I even bought the board game, but then I had nobody to play it with.