ForeCast How Fast Is Post-AGI Growth? (with Damon Binder)
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Jul 5, 2026 Damon Binder, a PhD physicist and senior researcher on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, outlines his analysis of an AI-driven industrial explosion. He explains input–output methods for growth limits, energy and machinery as core bottlenecks, why cheap disposable infrastructure could win, thermodynamic and biological analogies to replication speed, and the geopolitical instability of restraint.
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AGI Turns The Economy Into A Self-Replicator
- AI that can automate most human tasks converts the economy into a self-replicating machine.
- Damon Binder compares AGI plus robotics to a human printer that can produce arbitrary workers and so enables much faster physical growth than historical few-percent GDP rates.
Use Input-Output Tables To Bound Max Growth
- Input-output tables let you estimate max growth by treating labour as free and asking how fast capital reproduces itself.
- Binder uses sector-level IO data (energy, machines, construction) to compute payback times and a headline doubling-rate range.
Energy Payback Often Sets Growth Speed
- Energy production is often the tightest single-sector bottleneck because capital to make energy itself requires energy.
- Typical energy payback times for solar/wind/plant capital are on the order of ~1 year using current methods.