Seed Factories and Self-Improving Systems

An example of fully automated vehicle assembly. This represents the end point of a production chain included in a Seed Factory. Note the lack of human workers.


 Human-defined systems have characteristics of interest, such as size, monetary value, or output rate. Their change in a desired direction is considered an improvement. Self-improvement is when the change comes from internal action of the system. It has occurred throughout history in many ways, such the as evolution of life, or the development of civilization. But these changes have often been random rather than purposeful.

 This book discusses self-improving systems generally, but it is mainly about a new type of production system - a Seed Factory. This is a starter set of equipment specifically designed for growth and self-improvement. It does this by a recursive process, which has the potential for exponential growth. There are many uses for seed factories, and more generally for systems that are designed for self-improvement. We present several examples in the later sections of this book, and incorporate the concept in a companion book on Space Systems.


Table of Contents

Preface

1.0: Introduction

2.0: History and Concept Development

2.1 Self-Improvement and Seed Factories
2.2 Further Research & Development

3.0: Design Concepts

3.1 Motivations and Economics
3.2 Technical Concepts
3.3 New Ideas
3.4 Reference Architecture

4.0: Design Process

4.1 Functional Analysis & Allocate Requirements
4.2 Alternatives & System Modeling
4.3 Production Processes
4.4 Equipment Types

5.0: Personal Production

5.1 Requirements
5.2 Functions
5.3 Allocation
5.4 Modeling and Alternatives
5.5 Starter Set
5.6 Operations Flows

6.0: The MakerNet

6.1 Requirements

7.0: Industrial Production

8.0: Remote and Difficult Locations

9.0: Conceptual Design Notes

page 1: General Notes || Notes for Section 5.0 - Community Factory: Requirements, Functions
page 2: System Modeling
page 3: Alternatives, Habitation, Transport, Production Technologies
page 4: Production Alternatives
page 5, page 6, page 7: Develop Alternatives
page 8: Design Baseline
page 9: Old Text Still to be Merged or Moved
page 10: Notes transferred from Space Transport Wikibook
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