[Subtitle.] A podcast episode from Forethought
This is crosspost for How Fast Is Post-AGI Growth? by Fin Moorhouse, which was originally published on ForeWord on 5 July 2026. Relatedly, I liked the post AGI Will Set Off an Industrial Explosion by Damon Binder. I think Damon’s analyses show an industrial explosion is possible, but say very little about its likelihood.
Damon Binder is a senior researcher on the Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness team at Coefficient Giving. He has a PhD in physics from Princeton and previously studied existential risks at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute.
He joined Fin Moorhouse to discuss his series on the AI industrial explosion. Topics include:
How input-output tables let you estimate how fast a self-replicating economy could grow if labor were free, yielding a headline result of roughly annual doubling, even under conservative assumptions and heavy regulation
Why competition makes low-growth restraint unstable
Why raw-material scarcity isn’t a hard barrier
Why a fast-growing economy wants cheap, disposable, infrastructure
Thermodynamic speed limits to physical growth
Which biological organisms replicate fastest, and what we can learn from them
Why physical output matters for hard power
How Damon uses AI in his research
Here’s a link to the full transcript.
ForeCast is Forethought’s interview podcast. You can see all our episodes here.
Curious why you’ve been cross-posting things about AI recently. Any cause prio update?
Hi Jim. There is no particular reason. I have just been sharing content I find interesting. My views about AI risk have not changed much recently. I guess the risk of human extinction over the next 10 years is something like 10^-7.