“Self-replicating” will not undercut the price for robots for the same reason 3D printers don’t undercut the market for cheap plastic items. Large scale manufacture has huge cost advantages from using specialized equipment.
I only partly agree. 3D printing undercuts the market for low-volume cheap plastic items. Similarly, self-replicating robots could undercut the market for low-volume robot arm designs.
For factories in conventional situations, I agree that non-self-replicating equipment would be cheaper than self-replicating equipment for manufacturing the same goods.
Self-replicating robots are clearly cheaper than non-self-replicating ones in a few situations:
If there is a high cost to scaling up or down a factory, and demand often changes suddenly.
If it’s expensive or impossible to ship new equipment from a large scale manufacturing plant to the location it’s needed (e.g. Mars).
If there are natural resources to support an exponential growth scenario (e.g. a fully automated factory that can take in raw materials from a resource-rich planet to build more factory parts).
If the production equipment (including repair equipment) is often damaged and requires constant repair (e.g if individual self-replicating units are routinely destroyed by viruses or cosmic rays).
The point is to build something useful, for less cost—using self-replication to undercut the price of cheap imported robots.
“Self-replicating” will not undercut the price for robots for the same reason 3D printers don’t undercut the market for cheap plastic items. Large scale manufacture has huge cost advantages from using specialized equipment.
I only partly agree. 3D printing undercuts the market for low-volume cheap plastic items. Similarly, self-replicating robots could undercut the market for low-volume robot arm designs.
For factories in conventional situations, I agree that non-self-replicating equipment would be cheaper than self-replicating equipment for manufacturing the same goods.
Self-replicating robots are clearly cheaper than non-self-replicating ones in a few situations:
If there is a high cost to scaling up or down a factory, and demand often changes suddenly.
If it’s expensive or impossible to ship new equipment from a large scale manufacturing plant to the location it’s needed (e.g. Mars).
If there are natural resources to support an exponential growth scenario (e.g. a fully automated factory that can take in raw materials from a resource-rich planet to build more factory parts).
If the production equipment (including repair equipment) is often damaged and requires constant repair (e.g if individual self-replicating units are routinely destroyed by viruses or cosmic rays).