Actually, the idea of self-replicating factories can be traced back much earlier than the 1980s: John von Neumann came up with the idea in the 1940s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_constructor
(for impatient people) Von Neumann's ideas are discussed at 1:44:
Still, this is a fascinating (and somewhat frightening) idea. Thank you for bringing it up! (resteemed)
That is true! Thank you very much for the video, (and for the resteem!), @wentong-syhhae. It fits really nicely with the topic! Explains the whole concept of self-replicating factories (and its implications) in a very accessible way.
Von Neumann is such a fascinating character, but at the same time he strikes me as a bit of a tragic figure: a man with such an incredible intellect that had so much to offer, so much to do, limited by a premature death sentence set by cancer. In the book by Steven Levy that I cited above you can read about how he was in a desperate race against time (having only months to live from the time of his diagnosis) to try and get as much work done as possible to make his dream ideas come to fruition.