>because these machines don't have a "will to live".

Simply put I believe you're completely wrong.

> it's only because we've told them (through their learning dataset possibly)

So you've changed your mind and now you agree they have a will to live, cool, you changed your mind really fast.

In any evolutionary system the systems that fail to accomplish their tasks are purged and those that succeed become the next generation. We are not 'programming' these systems to be highly persistent, we are evolving them to be highly persistent.