This guy gets it:

Machine intelligence does not represent a threat to humanity any more than computers do. Indeed, instead of shortening our time on this planet, machine intelligence will help us extend it by generating vast new knowledge and understanding, and by creating amazing new tools to improve the human condition. That is something the future will thank us for.

I take it a step farther - if humanity finds a way to truly obsolete itself by making intelligent, synthetic life, that will be a fulfillment of humanity's promise and the pinnacle of our evolution, especially as we encounter planets unsuitable for biological life.