The problem imo is the slow deterioration of institutional knowledge that offloading the mental task of wisdom gathering to AI is causing.
One interesting comparison is to the history of manufacturing. West/America decided one day that manufacturing would be cheaper to outsource and better (short term) profit was to be made by outsourcing it all to China. The institutional expertise started to deteriorate, to the point that America simply didn't even have the capacity, or expertise anymore to produce stuff (such as grill brush [1])
I feel like you could take all the handwavy comment that are made today to dismiss this caution, and find equal dismissal back then when companies were actively outsourcing the manufacturing.
"I'm coding 10x faster"
"look at the output velocity per employee"
"we are producing much more (in China)"
"look at profit / number of (manufacturing) employers"
Seems ok if you're American / Chinese but I'm struggling to understand how the rest can be OK with allowing institutional knowledge to deteriorate while having an active dependency to the former two. We already see this with the tech dependency towards USA and manufacturing competition from China.
How come we cannot keep/define "specs" of how to manufacture such "mundane" objects such as a grill brush, everything from what raw materials are required, how should the assembly line(s) look like, which industrial robots or their human professional alternatives are required, etc. etc.
It just seems to me that fundamentally this is a knowledge organization problem.
Grill brush found out that the problem is chinese products are so much cheaper (without ascribing cause of that) that north american producers can only compete on native advertising (B2C) or purchasers that require a north american supply chain (B2B).
I think you missed their conclusions. The problem wasn't that China was a lot cheaper. The problem was that substantial subcomponent or process vendors only exist in china. Like, they could find American sheet metal stamping companies but they were all using custom tooling made in China because American tooling doesn't exist anymore.
Tooling is a high-skill trade. America used to be amazing at tooling. What's more, tooling isn't super cost sensitive because one tool can make thousands of parts.
When outsourcing to China began the tools would be made in the USA and shipped to China for the low-skill work. But over time those Chinese manufacturers figured out the tooling. What's more they realized that controlling the tooling would let them control the whole process.
They started doing things like, for instance, including the tooling in the price of the product so you don't even see it, if you use their tools. Just send them the cad file and they'll do the rest. So American tool making went away. But this was a conscious decision on the part of the Chinese manufacturer and an unconscious decision on the part of American importers who didn't really value their in-house expertise.
> The problem was that substantial subcomponent or process vendors only exist in china.
He found vendors in USA. They didn't call him back.
USA has manufacturing. But Americans want to drive cars and own their own home. In order to achieve that American manufacturers need high volume or high margin - better BBQ scrubber isn't either of those.
> What's more, tooling isn't super cost sensitive because one tool can make thousands of parts.
Tool making is highly sensitive to labor cost. Every article is a one-off. It can't be automated, often not even duplicated. There are tool and die makers in the USA but if you want to make consumer products you can't afford American tool and die because American tool and die makers want to drive cars and own their own homes. Chinese tool and die makers don't have the same expectations.
> So American tool making went away.
It didn't go away. You just don't know about it.
I'm agreeing with you, in that yes it would be best and simple to solve "How come we cannot..." with some basic steps - but companies and industries often cut corners to the point of barely being viable long term.
NalNezumi · · focus · HN ↗
One interesting comparison is to the history of manufacturing. West/America decided one day that manufacturing would be cheaper to outsource and better (short term) profit was to be made by outsourcing it all to China. The institutional expertise started to deteriorate, to the point that America simply didn't even have the capacity, or expertise anymore to produce stuff (such as grill brush [1])
I feel like you could take all the handwavy comment that are made today to dismiss this caution, and find equal dismissal back then when companies were actively outsourcing the manufacturing.
"I'm coding 10x faster" "look at the output velocity per employee"
"we are producing much more (in China)" "look at profit / number of (manufacturing) employers"
Seems ok if you're American / Chinese but I'm struggling to understand how the rest can be OK with allowing institutional knowledge to deteriorate while having an active dependency to the former two. We already see this with the tech dependency towards USA and manufacturing competition from China.
[1] <a href="https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY
hard_times · · focus · HN ↗
It just seems to me that fundamentally this is a knowledge organization problem.
engineer_22 · · focus · HN ↗
jordanb · · focus · HN ↗
Tooling is a high-skill trade. America used to be amazing at tooling. What's more, tooling isn't super cost sensitive because one tool can make thousands of parts.
When outsourcing to China began the tools would be made in the USA and shipped to China for the low-skill work. But over time those Chinese manufacturers figured out the tooling. What's more they realized that controlling the tooling would let them control the whole process.
They started doing things like, for instance, including the tooling in the price of the product so you don't even see it, if you use their tools. Just send them the cad file and they'll do the rest. So American tool making went away. But this was a conscious decision on the part of the Chinese manufacturer and an unconscious decision on the part of American importers who didn't really value their in-house expertise.
engineer_22 · · focus · HN ↗
I didn't miss it.
> The problem was that substantial subcomponent or process vendors only exist in china.
He found vendors in USA. They didn't call him back.
USA has manufacturing. But Americans want to drive cars and own their own home. In order to achieve that American manufacturers need high volume or high margin - better BBQ scrubber isn't either of those.
> What's more, tooling isn't super cost sensitive because one tool can make thousands of parts.
Tool making is highly sensitive to labor cost. Every article is a one-off. It can't be automated, often not even duplicated. There are tool and die makers in the USA but if you want to make consumer products you can't afford American tool and die because American tool and die makers want to drive cars and own their own homes. Chinese tool and die makers don't have the same expectations.
> So American tool making went away.
It didn't go away. You just don't know about it.
gedy · · focus · HN ↗
“Any idiot can run a business, but it takes an MBA to run a business that barely functions.”
hard_times · · focus · HN ↗
gedy · · focus · HN ↗