>There's also the possibility that strong AI comes online in tandem with humans developing neural nets, in such a way that humans aren't left behind by an AI going asymptotic.

Yes, I agree with this. I have placed it occurring roughly 5 years after the initial TS, which as you eloquently state may not be "a black haze of singularity".

https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/vpoopq/we_asked_gpt3_to_write_an_academic_paper_about/ielpj4d/