Yet I don't see us losing our heads over the chance of an alien invasion.
Considering the evolution of computing and technology in general in the last 50 years would you consider the two things to be remotely comparable?
I personally don't.
We just assume technology will improve exponentially based on an extremely small sample size. Has it never occurred to us that the technology curve may horizontally asymptotic as opposed to exponential?
The ICE was an amazing piece of technology that grew rapidly, from cars to military warplanes, to our lawnmowers. Yet we can not make them much more efficient or powerful without significantly increasing resources and cost. If you judged the potential of the ICE on the growth it had then, we'd be living in an efficiency utopia now.
I think we simply have no idea when this could happen, it could be in 20, it could be in 200. But one thing is sure, when it will happen, this will have drastic implications for our society, so why not start thinking about it now, in case it's 20 and not 200?