This is described in The Singularity is Near (edit: or How to Create a Brain. I dont' remember which) as the Law of Accelerating Returns, and is exactly what th

This is described in The Singularity is Near (edit: or How to Create a Brain. I dont' remember which) as the Law of Accelerating Returns, and is exactly what this journalist falls prey to. Human brains are accustomed to viewing the world linearly, not exponentially. Cascading technological breakthroughs are exponential, and therefore highly unlikely to be able to be predicted correctly without accounting for that bias.