So happy to see someone else write on this topic, and obviously I share your view more than I disagree. Still, having talked with proponents of the explosive growth view a lot, I wonder what you would say to the following?

1. Doesn't "ideas are getting harder to find" already include implicitly include the leaky connection between ideas and productivity? And quantitatively, if you can 1000x your research population, doesn't it kind of blow this issue out of the water, at least for a significant transition period?

2. Would your answer change if we also had robots that have basically human ability to sense their environment and move objects in 3D space (and assuming these robots are not that costly to build)?