"That modern myth where AI learns to improve itself in an exponential feedback loop towards evil godhood ain't gonna happen"
I've recently read the book "Novacene" by James Locklock, some interesting points raised in the book somewhat agree with this point. However an emerging "cyborg" species, as Lovelock describes it in the book, will still rapidly supersede our abilities and likely view us as we view plants or pets. Within the bounds of physics they will be "thinking" at a speed at least 10,000x faster than our own abilities. They will also evolve exceedingly quickly due to self selection, unlike our biological selection processes which have taken millions/billions of years to reach our present state.
An example of this is how long it takes a signal to travel along our nervous system. As quoted in the book the signals in our nervous system take 1 millisecond to travel 30 cm. A future cyborg species will not be bound by this same limitation. An example is copper, signal time is 1 nanosecond for 30cm. 1 million x faster than our ability to transmit a signal within our bodies.
They will still be bound by air resistance though while travelling within earth. Or perhaps they will strive to replace all biological life on earth with machine life and create an atmosphere less dense.