the prestige has a twist at the end which reveals “the prestige” (the final part of a magic act) of the protagonists magic act. The secret is that he creates a copy of himself. The on-stage magician is copied, but is doomed (falls into a properly-locked tank where he drowns), but the copy is created like 100m away, and can appear behind the audience faster than someone could move between those two points.
the magician knows this will happen, but does many nights of shows, each of which dooms a copy of himself.
The idea of an AI doing A/B testing on itself – which in the conventional sense would mean the murder of the less successful copy – reminds me of that.