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> THE GREATEST IMPROVEMENTS in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is anywhere directed,

> THE GREATEST IMPROVEMENTS in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour. > To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture, but one in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of a pin-maker...a workman not educated to this business...could scarce, perhaps..make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. I have seen a small manufactory...where ten men only were employed...Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. - An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, 1776

alganet 1y ago
When you divide and specialize manufacture, you get efficiency. When you divide and specialize design, you get design by commitee.
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  You clearly don't. If you design a desk lamp, it wasn't designed by a committee just because a person designed the screws, another designed the plate stamping machine, another designed the bulb socket and etc.
  - Buttons840 1y ago
    > When you divide and specialize design, you get design by commitee. In your counter-example, the design was not divided, and thus it is not a counter-example at all.
    - spongebobstoes 1y ago
      The division of design doesn't stop because some of the pieces can be bought at a store. The lamp design clearly was divided -- the final designer did not design the screws, lightbulb, wiring, and perhaps many other components. Someone had to design those components that were then combined creatively into a lamp. Dividing design into components that can be effectively reused is tricky, but it remains essential.
      - alganet 1y ago
        Real examples often work better. Last week I was learning about Itanium. It was a processor designed specifically for HP. Its goal was to replace both x86 and PowerPC. HP would design the new systems to run on Itanium, and Intel would design the chip. There was an attempt at specializing design here, with both companies running on design constraints from another. They formed a design comittee. This was like the screw company making screws _specifically_ for one kind of desk lamp. It's division and specialization of design. A natural specialization (one company gets very good at designing some stuff) is not divided, or orchestrated by a central authority. In manufacture, it's the other way around. If you already have a good design, the more divisions alongside a main central figure, the better. You can get tighter tolerances, timing benefits, etc. My argument is that these aspects are not transferrable from one concept to another. Design is different from manufacturing, and it gets worse if we try to apply the optimizations we often do with manufacturing to it.
  - alganet 1y ago
    Let's skip over to a real example, it's better. If you start designing hardware for AI, together with AI designed to run just on that hardware, and tie those design cycles together, you'll get a design by commitee. It is very likely that requirements will make an overall bad hardware (but slightly better for AI), and an overall bad AI (but slightly better in some hardware). Eventually, these shortcuts lead to huge commitees. Sometimes they're not even formally defined. The screw company should make good screws, not good screws for a specific desk lamp model. A good designer then _chooses_ to use those screws _because they are good_, not because they can make specific design requirements to the screw company.
    - kragen 1y ago
      My left femur is a good femur for my specific height and species. It would be a lot worse if I had to use the same femur as the pit bull next door. Why are desk lamps different? I conjecture that it's only because of the cognitive limitations of the designers.
      - alganet 1y ago
        I am sorry that you do not see yourself as different from a desk lamp.
        kragen 1y ago
        On the contrary, my comment was all about the difference! I see my body as far better designed than any desk lamp I have ever heard of. So I am puzzled as to why you count the characteristics that give rise to desk lamps' deficiencies as advantages on the side of the desk lamp.
        alganet 1y ago
        Your comparison with natural organisms _brightens my day_, but it is irrelevant for the context we're discussing.
      - eternityforest 1y ago

alganet 1y ago

When you divide and specialize manufacture, you get efficiency. When you divide and specialize design, you get design by commitee.

marcosdumay 1y ago
You clearly don't. If you design a desk lamp, it wasn't designed by a committee just because a person designed the screws, another designed the plate stamping machine, another designed the bulb socket and etc.
- Buttons840 1y ago
  > When you divide and specialize design, you get design by commitee. In your counter-example, the design was not divided, and thus it is not a counter-example at all.
  - spongebobstoes 1y ago
    The division of design doesn't stop because some of the pieces can be bought at a store. The lamp design clearly was divided -- the final designer did not design the screws, lightbulb, wiring, and perhaps many other components. Someone had to design those components that were then combined creatively into a lamp. Dividing design into components that can be effectively reused is tricky, but it remains essential.
    - alganet 1y ago
      Real examples often work better. Last week I was learning about Itanium. It was a processor designed specifically for HP. Its goal was to replace both x86 and PowerPC. HP would design the new systems to run on Itanium, and Intel would design the chip. There was an attempt at specializing design here, with both companies running on design constraints from another. They formed a design comittee. This was like the screw company making screws _specifically_ for one kind of desk lamp. It's division and specialization of design. A natural specialization (one company gets very good at designing some stuff) is not divided, or orchestrated by a central authority. In manufacture, it's the other way around. If you already have a good design, the more divisions alongside a main central figure, the better. You can get tighter tolerances, timing benefits, etc. My argument is that these aspects are not transferrable from one concept to another. Design is different from manufacturing, and it gets worse if we try to apply the optimizations we often do with manufacturing to it.
- alganet 1y ago
  Let's skip over to a real example, it's better. If you start designing hardware for AI, together with AI designed to run just on that hardware, and tie those design cycles together, you'll get a design by commitee. It is very likely that requirements will make an overall bad hardware (but slightly better for AI), and an overall bad AI (but slightly better in some hardware). Eventually, these shortcuts lead to huge commitees. Sometimes they're not even formally defined. The screw company should make good screws, not good screws for a specific desk lamp model. A good designer then _chooses_ to use those screws _because they are good_, not because they can make specific design requirements to the screw company.
  - kragen 1y ago
    My left femur is a good femur for my specific height and species. It would be a lot worse if I had to use the same femur as the pit bull next door. Why are desk lamps different? I conjecture that it's only because of the cognitive limitations of the designers.
    - alganet 1y ago
      I am sorry that you do not see yourself as different from a desk lamp.
      - kragen 1y ago
        On the contrary, my comment was all about the difference! I see my body as far better designed than any desk lamp I have ever heard of. So I am puzzled as to why you count the characteristics that give rise to desk lamps' deficiencies as advantages on the side of the desk lamp.
        alganet 1y ago
        Your comparison with natural organisms _brightens my day_, but it is irrelevant for the context we're discussing.
    - eternityforest 1y ago