Emerging signal: I’m seeing more and more hands-on pros—engineers, surgeons in the OR, mechanics—push back on the notion that AI is about to swallow the physical world whole.
After almost two decades working in hardware, I get it. Bits travel at the speed of a git push; atoms obey lead times, torque specs, and the occasional law of thermodynamics. Spinning a new PCB? Weeks (at best!). Shepherding a Class II medical device through the FDA? Let’s talk in quarters. Meanwhile, my software-only friends can refactor production over lunch. That cadence mismatch breeds all sorts of optimistic timelines.
When I’ve flagged this recently, the replies drift into hand-waving. Armchair architects sketching skyscrapers on napkins and assuming the steel crew will “figure it out.” But the fact is that the world of matter is less forgiving. Steel still yields at 36 ksi, silicon still needs a mask set, and the supply chain still runs on boats and trucks.
None of this means AI isn’t useful. It absolutely is. Vision systems catch bad solder joints before they ship; predictive maintenance saves factories real money. But headlines claiming the singularity is six years out ignore the slog of validation, liability, and, well, physics. Before you hand over your clinic to a black-box model, ask an actual doctor what they think. The raised eyebrow you get is the story.
Here’s the point: AI will augment physical work, but it won’t magic away the beautiful, stubborn complexity of the real world. Progress in hardware moves at the cadence of freight, not fiber. Any roadmap that forgets that rhythm is just a slide deck waiting to be walked back.