AI Industrial Takeoff — Part 1: Maximum growth rates with current technology

How fast could an AI-driven economy grow? Most economists expect a few percentage points at best, comparable to previous general-purpose technologies (Acemoglu (2024)). Those closer to AI development tend to imagine something much more radical (Shulman (2023); Davidson and Hadshar (2025)). This series aims to ground growth rates in how physical production works. Once human labor is automated, the constraint on growth becomes the speed at which the economy's physical capital can reproduce itself....