Some of them already exist. I'm optimistic enough to think plain ol' humans can do the others. I'm also fine with narrow AI that doesn't present the same risk as ASI; Google has built such AIs for protein folding and nuclear fusion, and nobody worries that they'll be any sort of problem.

If ASI is the only way then I'm fine with dying of old age without seeing this stuff, rather than risking human extinction. And even if ASI doesn't kill us, I'd rather see humans do it, instead of watching ASI do it while it keeps humans as pets.

We've come a long way all on our own. I don't think we've run out of tricks. It would be a shame if the human era came to an end.