I’m a little surprised the author fixates on increasing fertility instead of digital people.
Like any software, digital people could be instantly and accurately copied. The Duplicator argues that the ability to “copy people” could lead to rapidly accelerating economic growth: “Over the last 100 years or so, the economy has doubled in size every few decades. With a Duplicator, it could double in size every year or month, on its way to hitting the limits.”
Digital people could create a more dramatic effect than this, because of their ability to be sped up (perhaps by thousands or millions of times)3 as well as slowed down (to save on costs). This could further increase both speed and coordinating ability.4
Another factor that could increase productivity: “Temporary” digital people could complete a task and then retire to a nice virtual life, while running very slowly (and cheaply).5 This could make some digital people comfortable copying themselves for temporary purposes. Digital people could, for example, copy themselves hundreds of times to try different approaches to figuring out a problem or gaining a skill, then keep only the most successful version and make many copies of that version.
The more realistic version of this argument uses AI in place of digital people, which is certainly a possibility. But it’s still… put gently… not very grounded.
I’m a little surprised the author fixates on increasing fertility instead of digital people.
This is all the usual Age of Em stuff (see also Scott’s review).
The more realistic version of this argument uses AI in place of digital people, which is certainly a possibility. But it’s still… put gently… not very grounded.