4 ms·

The endgame is that we will be spending 99% of our time restarting IDEs and clearing caches to get rid of nonsensical errors, but since we will be 1000x as prod

The endgame is that we will be spending 99% of our time restarting IDEs and clearing caches to get rid of nonsensical errors, but since we will be 1000x as productive in the remaining 1%, it will still be worth it economically.

j-a-a-p 3y ago
Funny, I remember the discussion of this paper at my university a few decades ago. On your topic, I remember also a case that was discussed on a disinvestment of a fully automated factory. Loads of money was invested in the automation, but on several spots it still needed humans to glue the processes together. This work was so limited and dumb that no workers could be found who were able and willing to perform this task. As a result, parts of the automation was reverted.
- throwaway14356 3y ago
  I see a factory like that! At one point the only remaining work was when something went wrong. The production line ran so fast, if something went wrong it produced enough garbage for 15 people to clean up. Not sure how they arrived at 15 but with fewer it took longer to resume production. I estimate the thing crashed from 2-3 times per day to every 3 days or so with the later more often. Took about 15-20 minutes to clean up with 15. Say 1 person would need 4-5 hours. Then they gained 4.5 hours of production per incident (with 15 people) 15 * 8 hours * 3 days = 360 hours each of the 4.5 hours would then cost 80 man hours. Better numbers with more frequent crashes. Investors didn't like to see people sit, chat and drink coffee most of the day. The solution was to remove some machinery and all of the chairs. People had to work with insane speed to keep up. No time to scratch your itch, the work spot was designed for a machine, the one in storage. Imagine working there and going from drinking koffie all day to insane speed conveyor belt work because someone put the machine in storage because an investor might visit 1 time per year. Really brings out the best in people (ehm!)
  - commandlinefan 3y ago
    > Investors didn't like to see people sit, chat and drink coffee I do believe that the "workers must be uncomfortable all the time" mentality drives a ton of inefficiency. When my son was born, my wife worked from home, but we still needed a nanny to watch him most of the time so my wife could work. So we hired a teenage girl to come over and keep an eye on him for $10/hour. He was a baby, so it was pretty easy work - she spent most of the time watching TV. My wife complained that she was paying somebody $10/hour to just watch TV and insisted that she spend time cleaning instead. Well, she ended up leaving and we had a hell of a tough time replacing her - I said, "why do you care what she does as long as she gets her job (making sure our son doesn't die) gets done?" But she was adamant that if she was paying somebody, it had to look like "work" to her. I spent six years in college practicing the fine art of reading books and regurgitating their contents back in various contexts so that I could qualify for a job where any time spent reading anything is prohibited because it doesn't look like "measurable" work.
    - eternityforest 3y ago
      In the construction industry there seems to be some kind of thing where workers impose it on themselves or have to for competition. I'm constantly seeing tool demo videos with comments full of "What, you're not strong enough to just use X?" where X is usually something unpleasant but sometimes slightly faster or cheaper, like phillips deck screws or driving screws with an drill instead of an impact. It makes me wonder if the trades actually need to be as hard on people's bodies as they are. If the demand was there to make the tech a bit cheaper.... it seems like a lot of manual labor could be saved, but there's a culture of not complaining.
- buildsjets 3y ago
  Back when the F-22 was in production, I was in the building in Seattle where the carbon fiber wing skins were being laid up using an automated tape placement machine. The machine head would come down to a precise 3D location on a complex contoured mold, contact it with a precise pressure, lay out a tow of CFRP tape prepreg for a precise length, then trim it to a specific geometry. Before the machine started the next tow, it extruded an inch of tape, trimmed it for the start of the next tow. At this point, a mechanic would reach over with a spatula taped to a length of steel electrical conduit to collect the little piece of scrap and throw it away. I asked a manufacturing engineer why they did not just add a little vacuum hose to collect the trim - Apparently the mechanic's union contract required each machine to have a full-time operator, and they had to invent a task for the operator to do to keep them engaged.
  - Pet_Ant 3y ago
    I'm sure his family appreciated it. I think he'd be okay if you automated that but had to pay him the full salary anyway in perpetuity.
starbugs 3y ago
Already approaching this with Xcode, but without productivity gain. And by productive you mean producing new problems that need solving instead of really solving anything, so that business can continue to make money?

j-a-a-p 3y ago

Funny, I remember the discussion of this paper at my university a few decades ago. On your topic, I remember also a case that was discussed on a disinvestment of a fully automated factory. Loads of money was invested in the automation, but on several spots it still needed humans to glue the processes together. This work was so limited and dumb that no workers could be found who were able and willing to perform this task. As a result, parts of the automation was reverted.

throwaway14356 3y ago
I see a factory like that! At one point the only remaining work was when something went wrong. The production line ran so fast, if something went wrong it produced enough garbage for 15 people to clean up. Not sure how they arrived at 15 but with fewer it took longer to resume production. I estimate the thing crashed from 2-3 times per day to every 3 days or so with the later more often. Took about 15-20 minutes to clean up with 15. Say 1 person would need 4-5 hours. Then they gained 4.5 hours of production per incident (with 15 people) 15 * 8 hours * 3 days = 360 hours each of the 4.5 hours would then cost 80 man hours. Better numbers with more frequent crashes. Investors didn't like to see people sit, chat and drink coffee most of the day. The solution was to remove some machinery and all of the chairs. People had to work with insane speed to keep up. No time to scratch your itch, the work spot was designed for a machine, the one in storage. Imagine working there and going from drinking koffie all day to insane speed conveyor belt work because someone put the machine in storage because an investor might visit 1 time per year. Really brings out the best in people (ehm!)
- commandlinefan 3y ago
  > Investors didn't like to see people sit, chat and drink coffee I do believe that the "workers must be uncomfortable all the time" mentality drives a ton of inefficiency. When my son was born, my wife worked from home, but we still needed a nanny to watch him most of the time so my wife could work. So we hired a teenage girl to come over and keep an eye on him for $10/hour. He was a baby, so it was pretty easy work - she spent most of the time watching TV. My wife complained that she was paying somebody $10/hour to just watch TV and insisted that she spend time cleaning instead. Well, she ended up leaving and we had a hell of a tough time replacing her - I said, "why do you care what she does as long as she gets her job (making sure our son doesn't die) gets done?" But she was adamant that if she was paying somebody, it had to look like "work" to her. I spent six years in college practicing the fine art of reading books and regurgitating their contents back in various contexts so that I could qualify for a job where any time spent reading anything is prohibited because it doesn't look like "measurable" work.
  - eternityforest 3y ago
    In the construction industry there seems to be some kind of thing where workers impose it on themselves or have to for competition. I'm constantly seeing tool demo videos with comments full of "What, you're not strong enough to just use X?" where X is usually something unpleasant but sometimes slightly faster or cheaper, like phillips deck screws or driving screws with an drill instead of an impact. It makes me wonder if the trades actually need to be as hard on people's bodies as they are. If the demand was there to make the tech a bit cheaper.... it seems like a lot of manual labor could be saved, but there's a culture of not complaining.
buildsjets 3y ago
Back when the F-22 was in production, I was in the building in Seattle where the carbon fiber wing skins were being laid up using an automated tape placement machine. The machine head would come down to a precise 3D location on a complex contoured mold, contact it with a precise pressure, lay out a tow of CFRP tape prepreg for a precise length, then trim it to a specific geometry. Before the machine started the next tow, it extruded an inch of tape, trimmed it for the start of the next tow. At this point, a mechanic would reach over with a spatula taped to a length of steel electrical conduit to collect the little piece of scrap and throw it away. I asked a manufacturing engineer why they did not just add a little vacuum hose to collect the trim - Apparently the mechanic's union contract required each machine to have a full-time operator, and they had to invent a task for the operator to do to keep them engaged.
- Pet_Ant 3y ago
  I'm sure his family appreciated it. I think he'd be okay if you automated that but had to pay him the full salary anyway in perpetuity.

starbugs 3y ago

Already approaching this with Xcode, but without productivity gain. And by productive you mean producing new problems that need solving instead of really solving anything, so that business can continue to make money?