America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom • Hacker News Board

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#581

Post by SaltyBackendGuy » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 6:57 PM UTC

Rover222 wrote: post #577

mrinterweb wrote: post #505

Investing in AI infrastructure seems very risky to me. With how short of a lifecycle computing hardware generally has, does it make sense to blow billions on hardware that will need to be replaced in a few years? AI companies have been burning billions on hardware. Will the costs of that hardware be covered by profits before the hardware lifecycle is up? That's a big gamble. We used to talk about AI as having no moat…

Each datacenter iteration that increases the size and power consumption is a stepping stone towards (possibly) recursive self-improvement in AI tech. I think that's the way to frame the absolutely massive bets being made by (only a few) companies. There aren't many companies or nation states in the world that can marshal the resources and talent needed to keep competing on this path. It's a race to the the most power…

> But worth a shot.

Worth betting the entire US economy on it?

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#582

Post by rednafi » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 6:58 PM UTC

So far, the ROI has been much lower than expected. The hype certainly attracted a ton of investment, but aside from some code generation and summarization, I’ve yet to see any meaningful yield.

The narrative claims that AI will make everyone far more productive, but in reality, I see people working harder than ever and burning out while maintaining this slop in production.

AI search and summarization have been a flop, and most people I know hate them. LLMs are undoubtedly useful, but despite all the supposed productivity gains, I’m not seeing any measurable impact. I used to spend hours reviewing human-written PRs, and now I spend even more time because of lazy AI-generated garbage creeping into the codebase.

Some AI parrots will say, “Oh, I never push code I don’t understand,” but that doesn’t stop others from doing it, and now you have to be extra vigilant during PR reviews.

The gist is that everyone claims to be more productive, but the numbers say otherwise. Even so, LLMs are genuinely useful, just not nearly as much as the investment would suggest.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#583

Post by Rover222 » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 7:01 PM UTC

SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #581

Rover222 wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each datacenter iteration that increases the size and power consumption is a stepping stone towards (possibly) recursive self-improvement in AI tech. I think that's the way to frame the absolutely massive bets being made by (only a few) companies. There aren't many companies or nation states in the world that can marshal the resources and talent needed to keep competing on this path. It's a race to the the most power…

> But worth a shot. Worth betting the entire US economy on it?

Only a significant portion of it.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#584

Post by Braxton1980 » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 7:02 PM UTC

SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #581

Rover222 wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each datacenter iteration that increases the size and power consumption is a stepping stone towards (possibly) recursive self-improvement in AI tech. I think that's the way to frame the absolutely massive bets being made by (only a few) companies. There aren't many companies or nation states in the world that can marshal the resources and talent needed to keep competing on this path. It's a race to the the most power…

> But worth a shot. Worth betting the entire US economy on it?

No. Nothing is but is that what's happening?

Huge bets were made on the Internet technology in the US and it paid off even with the dot com bubble bursting.

If we don't stay on top of technology then we will simply be passed by China.

People also said the Internet was going revolutionize everything in the 90s and it did. AI is already pretty impressive and we are just in the infancy of the technology.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#585

Post by zevon » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 7:05 PM UTC

overfeed wrote: post #462

zbentley wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not everything requires improvement or tinkering. Some things are just done. For sure, but how do you know? If it's only via: > The experimental part is done until a new machine might provide some benefit (Often this is done by the manufacturer trying to sell them). Then you would test it out on that machine, not fuck up an existing well-running process. ...then I worry about the efficiency of improvement. Sure, ma…

> For sure, but how do you know? In actual engineering, one can work out the theoretical limits (strength, expansion, etc) and measure the current product's performance against the limits. A new widget-making machine or process cannot imbue widgets with physics-defying properties. Any fundamental improvements can only be made on the outside, auch as new alloys; but that would be an entirely different product, nor the…

If you don't have a very good marketing department, I'll still kick you out of business if I can double or triple the amount of widgets I can make because I started with the same machines you did - but I upgraded them with better controls, attached a few robot arms and now run a lights-out widget factory tended by a fraction of the workforce you employ while you reminisce about the good old times...

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#586

Post by parineum » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 7:10 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #310

al_borland wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a factory for a few months. They moved me around on the line. While each week looked the same, each day in the week was different. Though I was told by some of the other guys on the line that it was one of the nicer factories they ever worked in. I did some tech work in a few auto factories as well, and those had a very different vibe on the floor. While it may be boring to someone who use used to doing k…

The thing is, minimum wage there pays for 10 people on the floor in Asia and the cost of the factory is approximately the same. There’s no economic sense to build a factory in the states… which is where all the government subsidies enter the stage, but the budget is already running a war time deficit. It’s going to be so much worse for those small used-to-be-factory cities until the printer starts for real, and then…

Something that I hadn't considered before I heard it being discussed by someone who studied the phenomenon of factory off shoring is that a huge factor in the off shoring has nothing to do with labor, it has everything to do with ramp up time.

Compare the build time between Tesla's battery factories in the US and China and consider how many batteries they can sell during the time difference.

Building a factory loses money until the factory starts making products. Good or bad, regulations that cost _time_ are the biggest issue. Labor costs matter but they affect the margins that can be somewhat compensated for by products not needing overseas shipping. A company, especially a new one, can go out of business in the years it takes to build a factory in the US.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#587

Post by nosianu » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 7:29 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #369

RataNova wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wild to think we used to build things to last decades. Now we build them to chase benchmarks for the next quarter

Did we, though? I am just not convinced. A lot of cheap stuff through history that was definitely not made to last. I had paper dolls as a child. So did my mother. Probably her mother too - I'd ask, but she's dead. How long do you expect a car to last? 100k miles (160k km), at least? It wasn't all that long ago that they were dead at 100k. They used to add talc and sawdust to bread because they were cheaper than flou…

Good furniture was inherited and lasted a very long time even across generations.

For a while I still used a wonderful and thick winter (loden) coat originally owned by my great-grandfather, from the early 20th century.

Dishes and silverware. Toys, books. Tools. A modern hammer looks much more fancy but it works no better than an ancient dwarven-made one that gives you +10 strength when used. Musical instruments. Some kitchen utensils, especially ones used for traditional cooking and food preservation methods.

Boots and shoes! They were repaired repeatedly (that also means they were easily repairable, not so easy with current shoes and their materials and layers).

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#588

Post by zevon » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 7:33 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #517

ACCount37 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first thought is: "when that wears out or fails what the fuck are you replacing it with".

Something newer. The reason that 50-year-old machine tools are still around isn't that they can't be replaced. It's that there's often no reason to. To use OP as an example, in a lot of places, you'll find an ancient milling machine or a lathe that's dedicated to running a single job a few times a year. The machine was depreciated decades ago, but it can still do that job and there's no reason to get rid of it. What…

What do all these machine shops without any need for modern machinery and processes actually do?

Seriously though, of course you can make a living with old tools - however, even the village metal workshop around here has at least one big-ass laser cutter and a CNC mill next to all their old(er) lathes, mills, brakes, presses and other toys. Many oldschool fabricators I spoke to over the last few years are quite interested in what laser welding brings/will bring to the table. Basically all smaller fabrication companies I've seen (the long tail of the car industry and other bigger industries, mostly) are continually upgrading their infrastructure with all sorts of robots and other automation widgets. And so on.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#589

Post by badc0ffee » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 7:36 PM UTC

tclancy wrote: post #302

mikewarot wrote: post #133

Having worked in a job shop, a factory that did gears down to quantity one, I became quite aware of the differences between IT, my previous job, and actual physical production. The machine tools were all made 50+ years ago. Changing anything was a dangerous thing to do, because you might cause jobs that have known and reliable setups that are done a few times a year in quantity, to fail, erasing the profits for the j…

There is a really interesting generation gap issue in the replies to your comment. What I perceive as younger people are horrified at the idea of fifty year old tools while the older folks are thinking (I imagine) “if the tools have lasted that long they must be well-honed and very good”. Of course, this could simply be the perspective of someone turning 50 this year.

I'm a nearly 50 year old tool myself.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#590

Post by manquer » Tue, Oct 14, 2025, 7:38 PM UTC

walkabout wrote: post #552

manquer wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing has changed, people behave the exact same way then or now. People value longevity and quality only when the innovation pace is slow. Rapid innovation by definition comes with rapid changes. Rapid changes does not always mean it is planned obsolescence or just poor quality. In 1975( 50 years ago when the tooling you cite was built), nobody would want to fly in 20 year or 10 year old aircraft, today we don't ca…

> In 1975( 50 years ago when the tooling you cite was built), nobody would want to fly in 20 year or 10 year old aircraft, today we don't care how old the air-frame we fly are. Given the DC-3 is still(!) in service, and there were surely a ton more of them flying in 1975 than today, I'm not sure that's true. And that's far from the only example of a more-than-10-years-old-in-1975 aircraft that was certainly still in…

DC-3 was an exception[0]

The point was not on any specific technical or economic factor. It was to illustrate that rapid evolution in comfort, or speed and also safety[1] means people will prefer adoption of newer tech quickly and not be concerned about longevity and actively devalue slightly older products.

When the improvements start becoming marginal only then longevity start to matter. The planes developed from 90s to now have lot to offer operators but not much new[2] to passengers, we are still designing(not just operating) new 737 variants after all. Most people cannot tell the age of the plane if the cabin has been refreshed.

This preference for newer generation of tools has little to do with previous generations having different values as nostalgically some like to ascribe to, but simply to technology maturity was my point.

---

[0] As impressive the 100 year history and the longevity of a pre-war design has been. We have to keep in mind the dynamics of unpressurized plane operating at less than 300 knots with a service ceiling of less than 25,000 feet is hardly comparable to that of any modern passenger aircraft cruising at 0.90+ mach for 12-15+ hours daily at 37,000 feet going through tens of thousands pressurization cycles.

[1] Airframes perhaps were not a popular safety concern directly, pressurized and reduced noise in cabins were major selling points.

Air safety regulations were famously said to be written in blood. It is undeniable that was massive drop in fatalities in 80-90s from 60-70s after safety became concern and everyone held both operators and manufacturers accountable.

[2] Improved range or better engine reliability that meant we can do longer ETOS on twin engine etc do benefit passengers indirectly.