Nice article! There is another interesting perspective:
Anything selfreplicating kinda needs to be as small as possible (compared to the smallest internal mechanisms required), otherwise the replication time grows out of control:
Consider a 3D printer that can fully selfreplicate by depositing individual molecules: If this was the size of a regular printer, the replication time would be hopelessly long (>billion years even if it could deposit billions of atoms/s).
This applies somewhat universally, and is one of the reason why our current industrial tech is so unsuitable for selfreplication: Any "printing" like process (books, metal stamping, lithography) requires internal features that are much smaller than the output it produces.
Anything selfreplicating kinda needs to be as small as possible (compared to the smallest internal mechanisms required), otherwise the replication time grows out of control: Consider a 3D printer that can fully selfreplicate by depositing individual molecules: If this was the size of a regular printer, the replication time would be hopelessly long (>billion years even if it could deposit billions of atoms/s).
This applies somewhat universally, and is one of the reason why our current industrial tech is so unsuitable for selfreplication: Any "printing" like process (books, metal stamping, lithography) requires internal features that are much smaller than the output it produces.