What scary things do humans do, to each other and to lesser species? What amazing things do humans do? What concept lets humans do anything noteworthy at all? Here's a nice essay on the power of intelligence: http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/power
It doesn't. Hence the curiosities and concerns about general AI, non-human intelligence, hopefully created by us humans, the first intelligences intelligent enough to design their successor instead of letting a weaker non-intelligent design process such as evolution happen upon it by chance.
The site I linked to has some good introductory material to the related concepts. (http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/intro is short and to the point.) http://singularity.org/research/ lists some important texts to read, and following up on the authors will lead to more. (An author I will also recommend following for his practical pursuits is Ben Goertzel. Lastly, I think this is a good criticism of the Singularity Institute's general mode of operating: http://kruel.co/2012/11/03/what-i-would-like-the-singularity... But you should probably read that one last, if you intend to read anything at all beyond the simple introduction.)
Well said. What is it that AI is supposed to do that's so scary, anyway?