Yes, really. Scifi fantasies don’t count as evidence and we’ve learned since the Renaissance and scientific revolution that all this Platonic theorizing is just an intellectual circle jerk.
“Speaker A: Infectious diseases are caused by tiny organisms that are not visible to unaided eyesight. Speaker B: Your statement is false. Speaker A: Why do you think that it is false? Speaker B: It sounds like nonsense. Speaker B denies Speaker A's claim without providing evidence to support their denial.”
Also I gave a real world example that wasn’t related to sci-fi in any way
We assume human-level general AI is possible because we exist in nature but a super-human self-optimizing AI god is nowhere to be found.
The history of humanity is replete with examples of the slightly more technologically advanced group decimating their competition. The default position should be that uneven advantage is extremely dangerous to those disadvantaged. This idea that an intelligence significantly greater than our own is benign just doesn't pass the smell test.
Like i said above you can argue that an AGI can be realized because there's plenty of us running around on earth but claims about a hypothetical super AGI are unfounded and akin to Russell's Teapot.
So I ask, are systems capable of better than human intelligence possible? And if so to what factor?
I would answer yes and unknown. If there are states of intelligent far greater than human then that gets really risky very fast.