The industrial explosion

Abstract

Once AI can automate human labour, physical capabilities could grow explosively. Sufficiently advanced robotics could create a feedback loop where automated robot factories build more and better robot factories which build more and better robot factories. In this piece, we examine three stages of an industrial explosion: AI-directed human labour, fully automated physical labour, and nanotechnology. An industrial explosion would arise in a world which already has greatly increased cognitive capabilities, and could ultimately become extremely fast, with the amount of physical labour doubling in days.