We now evolve culturally and are as much as product of our culture as our biology.
This statement disguises complex processes and links natural selection to cultural change, a thesis that has not been proven. Nor is it clear whether culture and biology are equally powerful in their shaping, or if one dominates the other.
Assumptions about the convergence of 'theories of cultural selection' and progress shape the arguments of Singularitarians and their 'friendly sceptics'. I count myself as one, though its deterministic teleology can constrain debate.
Wallach's talk concerned how we craft an ethical framework for these changes and why our current, fragmented debate has not fully engaged with the potential autonomy of the machine and the enhanced responsibility of the human. His talk clearly kicks this off and attacks one potential myth: that the enhanced moral autonomy of the tool diminishes the need for moral responsibility on the part of the owner or operator.
The Singularity as concept may fail Wallach's test to think "comprehensively" about the shift in technology and humanity's place within it. As the most developed game in town, Kurzweil is the one to listen to and react against, if we are to achieve a more diverse understanding of what may come.