I will also note that von Neumann may have been the first to talk explicitly about the possibility of machines creating machines more intelligent than themselves, in a lecture delivered in 1948 and published in 1951:

We are all inclined to suspect in a vague way the existence of a concept of “complication.” This concept and its putative properties have never been clearly formulated. We are, however, always tempted to assume that they will work in this way, When an automaton performs certain operations, they must be expected to be of a lower degree of complication than the automaton itself. In particular, if an automaton has the ability to construct another one, there must be a decrease in complication as we go from the parent to the construct. That is, if A can produce B, the A in some way must have contained a complete description of B. In order to make it effective, there must be, furthermore, various arrangements in A that see to it that this description is interpreted and that the constructive operation that it calls for are carried out, In this sense, it would therefore seem at a certain degenerating tendency must be expected, some decrease in complexity as one automaton makes another automaton.

Although this has some indefinite plausibility to it, it is in clear contradiction with the most obvious things that go on in nature. Organisms reproduce themselves, that is, they produce new organisms with no decrease in complexity. In addition, there are long periods of evolution during which the complexity is even increasing. Organisms are indirectly derived from others which had lower complexity.

...All these are very crude steps in the direction of a systematic theory of automata. They represent, in addition, only one particular direction. This is, as I indicated before, the direction towards forming a rigorous concept of what constitutes “complication.” They illustrate that “complication” on its lower levels is probably degenerative, that is, that every automaton that can produce other automata will only be able to produce less complicated ones. There is, however, a certain minimum level where this degenerative characteristic ceases to be universal. At this point automata which can reproduce themselves, or even construct higher entities, become possible. This fact, that complication as well as organization, below a certain minimum level is degenerative, and beyond that level can become self-supporting and even increasing, will clearly play an important role in any future theory of the subject.