The real argument should be
"The update debate has divided security experts about whether automatic updates are more trouble than they're worth because bad code can cause data loss."
There is no worse thing that software can do than cause data loss. That said, I think this is the wrong debate. The real debate should be around forcing people to update.
If someone wants to have updates automatically applied and are willing to accept the risk, I have no problem with that. But it should be optional. I think this is an ethical issue -- it is not ethically supportable to force updates on people, full stop.