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Calibrating the Universal Assembler: the economy as genie machineThere is already an entity that can make literally anything (at least, anything that can be made) -- the world economy. The world economy could also make a copy of itself -- if we had an empty continent, or an empty planet, we could, theoretically, make a copy of the economy. Since everything in the economy is made somewhere in the economy, it has the capability of replicating itself. Could any smaller system make "anything" in that sense? In other words, could a group of countries, or one country, or one state, make everything that the world economy makes, including a copy of itself? Probably. Europe, including Britain, could dispense with imports (except raw materials) and make everything itself. So could the United States. There are things such as VCRs that we import from Asia, but if we wanted to we could (probably) make all that stuff ourselves. Our economy is diverse enough and complex enough to make everything the world economy makes. A somewhat smaller country such as Japan could probably make anything, including copies of itself. But could an entity smaller than Japan make anything? I'm not sure. Could California, for example, with a population of 30 million or so, make everything the world economy makes, and also make copies of itself? Maybe. We have a very diverse economy here. Given a dramatic improvement in the school system and the quality of the workforce, California might be able to make anything, including a copy of itself. But, maybe not. California could make cars -- there is already one car factory that I know of, in Fremont -- but could California make all the cars that are made in Michigan, Japan, Germany, etc.? I'm not sure. We would have to take people away from other jobs and put them to work in the auto industry -- and then who would do the jobs that they do now? Could we make all the planes that come out of Seattle, plus all the parts for those planes, which are imported from all over the world, plus all the machines that make the parts, plus all the machines that make those machines? And so forth... ask the same question for every industry you can think of. It is not clear to me that California could make "anything." What about an entity smaller than California? Could the city of Mountain View, by itself, make anything, including copies of itself? Obviously not. An economy capable of making "anything" must contain a variety of industries, indeed a complete set of industries, and this requires a population of several million, perhaps tens or hundreds of millions. A country could have the capability to make anything, i.e. any given thing that is desired, without being able to make everything at once. However, this distinction depends on the adaptability of the work force. If a country is populated by renaissance men who can move from one job to another effortlessly, then it could have a complete set of industries with a population of 10^7. That would be a country approximately the size of Sweden or Holland, or a city the size of greater Los Angeles. Conceivably the population could be less than 10^7. Israel, with a population of four or five million, might be able to make anything. Israel can't make everything the world economy makes -- not all at once -- but if the Israelis could apply a Shape Shifter to change a mathematician into a metallurgist or a videographer or whatever was needed at the moment, then they could make any given item they wanted to make, and they could also make a copy of their economy. In that sense a country the size of Israel could have a (potentially) complete set of industries. However, if a country is populated by ordinary people who can only do one job (at most), then the distinction between "anything" and "everything at once" is less meaningful, and a much larger population would be necessary. Assuming that the workers are not renaissance men, I think Japan is just about the lower limit here. I don't know of any country smaller than Japan that even comes close to being able to make anything, without making unrealistic assumptions about how easily people can learn new jobs. (Maybe Germany, but the population of Germany is not much less than Japan. They are both about 10^8, give or take 20 million.) What I am doing here is trying to calibrate the idea of "an entity that can make anything, including copies of itself," with the further condition that it must be able to make things to spec. In other words it doesn't just produce things as a byproduct of natural processes, like a mold produces penicillin -- it produces what it is asked to produce. Any such entity must be a complete economy, and must contain a population of 10^8 (to the nearest order of magnitude). There are tens of millions of jobs that require human judgment. Whether these jobs could be done by robots with human intelligence will be discussed in other sections. That doesn't affect my point here. Whether one person can do more than one job doesn't really affect the point either. I'm just trying to establish the level of complexity that is necessarily involved in an entity that can make "anything," including copies of itself. In the previous section I said that a desktop manufacturing facility would be a computer with a new peripheral, the "box," that can not only print pictures of things, but make the things themselves. If the box really can make anything, then it must contain within it an economy as complex and diverse as a country like Japan or Germany. |