Economist: Even if AI doubles manufacturing tonnage, demand saturation caps growth
binarybits · x · 2026-09-20
Economist Timothy Taylor (@binarybits) pushes back, in a discussion with Toby Ord and Ryan Greenblatt, on the idea that AI will spark an explosion in physical production. Using textiles as an example, he notes it's not just that the dollar value of t-shirts has fallen — unit growth rates in the textile industry have also declined for decades, because people simply don't need more shirts no matter how cheap they get. His point: even if raw industrial output could double in about a year (as Damon Binder's work suggests), demand saturation remains the binding constraint, so manufacturing tonnage doesn't translate into proportional economic value.
Related event: Debating AI-Driven Industrial Explosion: Greenblatt vs. Timothy Lee(19 posts)→
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