Comment by ben_w

For similar reasons I don't believe that AI will get into any interesting self-improvement cycles (occasional small boosts sure, but they won't go all the way from being as smart as a normal AI researcher to the limits of physics in an afternoon).

That said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and the stuff we do routinely — including this conversation — would have been "godlike" to someone living in 1724.