Doubly declining learning curve

(wiki-TODO: Add a bullet-pointed tl;dr summary of the essence here.)

Transcript excerpt from a talk given by Jim Von Ehr

2012 – What's New With Nanotech: A Presentation by Zyvex CEO Jim Von Ehr (link to section in video at the bottom)

"We have to build the factory itself out of the same technology that it is manufacturing,
so the breakdown in the semiconductor industry is happening right now because the cost of the wafer fab is becoming astronomical.
It is three or four billion dollars (dollars of 2015 worth) to build a new manufacturing facility now
because they are not profiting by making smaller parts.
The technology is to make the chips are not scaling at/in the same way the transistors are
but if we have an atomically precise manufacturing, it is making small precise parts,
those are exactly what we need in the factory to make cheaper factories.
So now we have a doubly declining learning curve
as we get better making the parts
we make more precise parts more cheaply.
We put those together in the factory
the factory itself gets cheaper as the parts get cheaper
now we are on a doubly declining learning curve
the economics of that are stunning.
Maybe just see what happened with the cost of transistors, the cost of electronic functionality
where only one dimension is changing, the part (where)
the cost per transistor is going down (but) the cost of the factory is going up exponentially.
Imagine if both of those were going down.
We now have manufacturing that is basically making/trending towards infinitely complex objects at zero cost.
Sort of the economics of nature, and how much does it cost to make an acorn.
So that's the exciting thing to me about nanotechnology – is what that does to the cost of manufacturing."

Then he goes a bit more into the philosophical/political: "I used to worry about what does that mean for jobs? What does that mean for human well-being?
Then the more I started free market economics the ore I realized that's not a question that really matters.
It is going to make so much wealth in society,
we could well see a world where only one percent of the people actually do productive creative things
and the rest of them are able to live off that one percent. We will figure out a way to adept.
I think those of us who like to work will continue to work,
those who don't hopefully will allow us who do to continue to do our thing.
And there will be enough wealth to go around."

Related

• Moores law

External links

• Youtube ReasonTV: [2012 – What's New With Nanotech: A Presentation by Zyvex CEO Jim Von Ehr (@23m04s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1ZggI7ftAQ&feature=youtu.be&t=23m4s]
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_fabrication_plant
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_device_fabrication