I don’t yet understand why you believe that hardware scaling would come to grow at much higher rates than it has in the past.
If we assume innovations decline, then it is primarily because future AI and robots will be able to automate far more tasks than current AI and robots (and we will get them quickly, not slowly).
Imagine that currently technology A that automates area X gains capabilities at a rate of 5% per year, which ends up leading to a growth rate of 10% per year.
Imagine technology B that also aims to automate area X gains capabilities at a rate of 20% per year, but is currently behind technology A.
Generally, at the point when B exceeds A, I’d expect growth rates of X-automating technologies to grow from 10% to >20% (though not necessarily immediately, it can take time to build the capacity for that growth).
For AI, the area X is “cognitive labor”, technology A is “the current suite of productivity tools”, and technology B is “AI”.
For robots, the area X is “physical labor”, technology A is “classical robotics”, and technology B is “robotics based on foundation models”.
That was just assuming hardware scaling, and it justifies a growth in some particular growth rates, but not a growth explosion. If you add in the software efficiency, then I think you are just straightforwardly generating lots of innovations (what else is leading to the improved software efficiency?) and that’s how you get the growth explosion, at least until you run out of software efficiency improvements to make.
If we assume innovations decline, then it is primarily because future AI and robots will be able to automate far more tasks than current AI and robots (and we will get them quickly, not slowly).
Imagine that currently technology A that automates area X gains capabilities at a rate of 5% per year, which ends up leading to a growth rate of 10% per year.
Imagine technology B that also aims to automate area X gains capabilities at a rate of 20% per year, but is currently behind technology A.
Generally, at the point when B exceeds A, I’d expect growth rates of X-automating technologies to grow from 10% to >20% (though not necessarily immediately, it can take time to build the capacity for that growth).
For AI, the area X is “cognitive labor”, technology A is “the current suite of productivity tools”, and technology B is “AI”.
For robots, the area X is “physical labor”, technology A is “classical robotics”, and technology B is “robotics based on foundation models”.
That was just assuming hardware scaling, and it justifies a growth in some particular growth rates, but not a growth explosion. If you add in the software efficiency, then I think you are just straightforwardly generating lots of innovations (what else is leading to the improved software efficiency?) and that’s how you get the growth explosion, at least until you run out of software efficiency improvements to make.