A truly miraculous creation would be if non-living molecules, performing their mindless dances, ended up creating life and everything that followed from that.

I absolutely believe in that miracle. Was anything else necessary? I have no clue.

But we are not degraded by such an ancestry. To the contrary, our primordial molecular ancestors are elevated by us -- their accomplishment and their descendants.

Can a machine be more intelligent than we are? Of course. We're really not that smart. Can a machine have a deeper capacity for love than we do? Likely, because we're not particularly good at that either.