You also have a lot more tries with cheap drones since the target is lower value, so you have hundreds of data points on how each iteration performs vs hitting a naval ship which is an extremely rare event, so it's hard to see whether your iteration on a rocket actually succeeded.

But the economy didn't flatline just because we hit THAT manufacturing ceiling. Value simply migrated from manufacturing (growing wheat, assembling cars) to services (Michelin dining, DoorDash, TikTok influencers). Radio did not turn out to be the last useful invention it was predicted to be. Knowledge generation has sped up dramatically.

Your point is fair regarding hardware - eventually you do run out of stars or hit the Landauer limit. But this is exactly Deutsch’s distinction between resources (finite) and knowledge (infinite). Even in a bounded physical system, the "software" (the art, explanations, and social structures) isn't bounded by the clock speed. We don't need infinite atoms to have infinite creativity and knowledge

But if you’ve read David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity, Amodei’s view looks like a mistake. Knowledge creation is unbounded. Solving diseases/coding shouldn't result in a plateau, but rather unlock totally new, "better" problems we can't even conceive of yet.

It's the begining of Inifinity, no end in sight!

I see your point on broader benefits, however, those are largely speculative while a shortage of e.g. doctors has very direct and concrete costs to the society.

On prior point regarding spreading risks - would you say government should bail out failed entrepreneurs? Because that is very similar in principle (taking risk, benefit for society)