To quickly transform the world, it’s not enough for AI to become super smart (the “intelligence explosion”).

AI will also have to turbocharge the physical world (the “industrial explosion”). Think robot factories building more and better robot factories, which build more and better robot factories, and so on.

The dynamics of the industrial explosion has gotten remarkably little attention.

This post lays out how the industrial explosion could play out, and how quickly it might happen.

We think the industrial explosion will unfold in three stages:

• AI-directed human labour, where AI-directed human labourers drive productivity gains in physical capabilities.

1. We argue this could increase physical output by 10X within a few years.

• Fully autonomous robot factories, where AI-directed robots (and other physical actuators) replace human physical labour.

1. We argue that, with current physical technology and full automation of cognitive labour, this physical infrastructure could self-replicate about once per year.
2. 1-year robot doubling times is very fast!

• Nanotechnology, where physical actuators on a very small scale build arbitrary structures within physical limits.

1. We argue, based on experience curves and biological analogies, that we could eventually get nanobots that replicate in a few days or weeks. Again, this is very fast!