自1913年亨利·福特(Henry Ford)引入移动装配线以来,制造业的基本拓扑结构尚未经历范式层面的变革。过去一个世纪的每一项重大创新——从丰田生产方式(Toyota Production System)到工业4.0(Industry 4.0)——均在福特主义范式内进行优化,而未改变其结构性逻辑:即依托劳动力集聚区布局的、规模化生产的中心化巨型工厂。我们认为,具身智能(embodied intelligence)即将打破这一持续百年的停滞状态;其作用并非提升现有工厂的效率,而是直接触发制造业经济地理本身的相变。当具身人工智能在灵巧性(dexterity)、泛化能力(generalization)、可靠性(reliability)及触觉-视觉融合(tactile-vision fusion)等能力维度跨越关键阈值时,其影响远超成本降低范畴:它将重构工厂选址逻辑、重塑供应链组织方式,并重新定义可行的生产规模。我们通过定义能力空间 C = (d, g, r, t),并证明当能力向量穿越临界曲面时,厂址选择目标函数发生拓扑重构,从而形式化该机制。经由三种路径——权重倒置(weight inversion)、批量坍缩(batch collapse)与人-基础设施解耦(human-infrastructure decoupling)——我们表明,具身智能可支持需求邻近型微型制造(demand-proximal micro-manufacturing),消除“制造荒漠”(manufacturing deserts),并逆转由劳动力套利驱动的地理集聚趋势。我们进一步提出“机器气候优势”(Machine Climate Advantage)概念:一旦人类工人被移除,最优工厂选址将由机器最优运行条件(低湿度、高辐照度、热稳定性)决定,这些因素与传统选址逻辑正交,由此催生一种前所未有的生产地理格局。本文确立了‘具身智能经济学’(Embodied Intelligence Economics)——即研究物理人工智能能力阈值如何塑造经济系统结构的学科。
The fundamental topology of manufacturing has not undergone a paradigm-level transformation since Henry Ford's moving assembly line in 1913. Every major innovation of the past century, from the Toyota Production System to Industry 4.0, has optimized within the Fordist paradigm without altering its structural logic: centralized mega-factories, located near labor pools, producing at scale. We argue that embodied intelligence is poised to break this century-long stasis, not by making existing factories more efficient, but by triggering phase transitions in manufacturing economic geography itself. When embodied AI capabilities cross critical thresholds in dexterity, generalization, reliability, and tactile-vision fusion, the consequences extend far beyond cost reduction: they restructure where factories are built, how supply chains are organized, and what constitutes viable production scale. We formalize this by defining a Capability Space C = (d, g, r, t) and showing that the site-selection objective function undergoes topological reorganization when capability vectors cross critical surfaces. Through three pathways, weight inversion, batch collapse, and human-infrastructure decoupling, we show that embodied intelligence enables demand-proximal micro-manufacturing, eliminates "manufacturing deserts," and reverses geographic concentration driven by labor arbitrage. We further introduce Machine Climate Advantage: once human workers are removed, optimal factory locations are determined by machine-optimal conditions (low humidity, high irradiance, thermal stability), factors orthogonal to traditional siting logic, creating a production geography with no historical precedent. This paper establishes Embodied Intelligence Economics, the study of how physical AI capability thresholds reshape the spatial and structural logic of production.