ess valuable), which are on an exponential growth trajectory set to cover the entire planet by 2055,
Quick BOTEC to check your numbers. Surface area of Mars is 55million square miles. Let’s say the US and China ship enough robotic factory equipment to Mars to cover 1 square mile. 25 doublings later would be covering basically the whole surface. Can a robotic factory double in about a year? Yeah totally. 2020′s Tesla factories took about a year to build and produce about their own weight in material.
OK, so this seems like a reasonable estimate to me assuming technology that is a bit better than what we have today. Technology that is closer to physical limits of what’s possible would probably be more in the reference class of grass or algae (doubling in a week or less) so I think the crux is basically whether progress peters out around human level or whether vastly superhuman AIs exist and are able to invent vastly superhuman industrial tech. As you can probably guess I think that by 2040 the answer to both questions would be Yes and so the entire surface would be covered much sooner than 2055.
Quick BOTEC to check your numbers. Surface area of Mars is 55million square miles. Let’s say the US and China ship enough robotic factory equipment to Mars to cover 1 square mile. 25 doublings later would be covering basically the whole surface. Can a robotic factory double in about a year? Yeah totally. 2020′s Tesla factories took about a year to build and produce about their own weight in material.
OK, so this seems like a reasonable estimate to me assuming technology that is a bit better than what we have today. Technology that is closer to physical limits of what’s possible would probably be more in the reference class of grass or algae (doubling in a week or less) so I think the crux is basically whether progress peters out around human level or whether vastly superhuman AIs exist and are able to invent vastly superhuman industrial tech. As you can probably guess I think that by 2040 the answer to both questions would be Yes and so the entire surface would be covered much sooner than 2055.