Vinge's "superhuman intelligence" rhetoric bothers me because it suggests that intelligence is a one-dimensional quantity. I don't think this makes sense except in the context of specific domains. For example, a basic calculator has superhuman intelligence when it comes to arithmetic, because it can evaluate arbitrary expressions much faster than a human can and doesn't make mistakes. But it's dumb about everything else.
Update: The child comment by binaryfinery points to where Vinge addresses this. Sorry, I failed to add the disclaimer that I only skimmed the article.
Update: The child comment by binaryfinery points to where Vinge addresses this. Sorry, I failed to add the disclaimer that I only skimmed the article.