[language]

However, as we are all now beginning to discover, the employment of ‘feedback loops’ are creating one of the most mind-boggling new capabilities for automation. This is not hyperbole, [...]

Always glad to see references to Hofstadter's work, but this sounds like hyperbole. I don't think that mere feedback loops are "strange" enough to invoke his name. I think the idea refers to loops in systems which are heterarchical. I don't think there are any interesting crossings over different layers of abstraction here.

Interestingly, these ideas have been around for quite some time. For example, the work of Warren McCulloch (and Walter Pitts) predates Hofstadter's thought in this space. Relevant passage from his 1945 article, "A Heterarchy of Values Determined by the Topology of Nervous Nets":

"[..] three heterodromic branch­es link the dromes so as to form a circle in the net which is distin­guished from an endrome in that it is not the circuit of any drome but transverse to all dromes, i.e., diadromic. The simplest surface on which this net maps topologically (without a diallel) is a tore. Cir­cularities in preference, instead of indicating inconsistencies, actually demonstrate consistency of a higher order than had been dreamed of in our philosophy."

[mlechha]

How do you know whether something is a hyperbole? When the author claims something is not a hyperbole.