> does anyone with a real technical background... this believe this stuff?
Why not?
Why not?
Let's say we can build a machine smarter than a single person, that’s a long way from building something smarter than humanity so there is not a quick kick off to infinity. Now let's suggest we build a billion of the things and they are all smarter than the average person. Nothing says you can get anything close to a linear feedback between the intelligence designing an AI and how smart the AI is so there would not necessarily be a feedback loop to keep making more intelligent systems. etc.
Economics drives an increase in computation per unit cost not processor speed. How the increase in accomplished is irrelevant.
The current peak in processor speed may also be temporary as you can see with a quick google search. http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law
Aside from that, the difference between one human and all of us is only 2^32 - so if you can place the intelligence of one human on a chip, you'll be able to do the same thing with all of humanity 64 years later. And that's ignoring things like reduced costs per chip / using multiple chips for the same price.