Different audience, different language. I'm just impressed that a NY Op-Ed actually contained these sentences:

My case for these conclusions relies on three main observations. The first is that our own intelligence is an evolved biological solution to a kind of optimization problem, operating under very tight constraints of time, energy, raw materials, historical starting point and no doubt many other factors. [...] Second, this biological endowment, such as it is, has been essentially constant, for many thousands of years. It is a kind of fixed point in the landscape, a mountain peak on which we have all lived for hundreds of generations. [...] my third observation – we face the prospect that designed nonbiological technologies, operating under entirely different constraints in many respects, may soon do the kinds of things that our brain does, but very much faster, and very much better, in whatever dimensions of improvement may turn out to be available.

That's a very gentile nudge toward a radical shift in how intelligence is generally thought of. Simple analogies and simple terminology (except for 'optimization problem', which I think could be understood from the context) for people reading the paper over a bowl of cereal.