Cracked.com's Jason Iannone, on the game-changing nature of AGI versus its portrayal in fiction:
Cortana, the Chief's AI sidekick [in Halo] [...] can control entire cities by remotely breaking into their battle nets and taking over their weaponry, without anyone ever setting foot in the area. Which is another way of saying that she really doesn't need the Chief at all.
[...] Master Chief, for all his badassitude, is really just a grunt whose life is being put unnecessarily at risk, although a video game featuring him doing nothing but sitting around eating tacos in the cafeteria while Cortana does all the work would probably not have sold as well.
From 6 Video Game Heroes Made Useless By Supporting Characters. High Challenge is relevant to the closing point.
As a part of public relations, I think it's important to keep tabs on how the Singularity and related topics (GAI, FAI, life-extension, etc.) are presented in the culture at large. I've posted links to such things in the past, but I think there should be a central clearinghouse, and a discussion-level post seems like the right place.
So: in the comments, post examples of references to Singularity-related topics that you've found, ideally with a link and a few sentences' description of what the connection is and how it's presented (whether seriously or as an object of ridicule, for instance).
There should probably be a similar post for rationality references, but let's see how this one goes first.