I disagree with humans being the CNC machines. In both cases, humans instruct the technology to create the designs, but it is the machine which is digging into the product to create the visual patterns.

But as cars became more reliable and complex, fewer and fewer now know how.

There is also DRM and other shenanigans going on.

For example, just to replace your brake pads - something that most everyone should be able to do - requires, on most average modern cars made in the last 2-3 years, a $1,000,000 piece of software with a $6,000/mo subscription package.

Why? Because until the vehicle manufacturer authorizes that brake pad replacement, that vehicle will refuse to even turn on, much less move. It needs to obtain cryptographically-signed approval from the manufacturer for the work that had been done to it in order for it to even turn over the engine.

Now your average car owner isn’t going to have these means, so everything gets pushed off to manufacturer-authorized repair depots, invariably car dealerships, where everything can be nickel-and-dimed to maximum revenue.

This lack of repairability is one of three major reasons why I will never personally own a vehicle manufactured after 2006.

Let me give an example that matches my own discouragement and might also explain yours.

In the middle of last century, the woodworking industry that created fine furniture started experiencing a shift. Due to the sudden explosion of wages and wealth and population in the late 40s to 70s, products had to be made faster and cheaper.

One method was to lower the quality of inputs. Plywood instead of hardwood. Then fiberboard/chipboard instead of plywood.

We see the same system in play now, with AI automation and it’s gratuitous hallucinations. It is essentially garbage materials in order to save time and money.

But another method was also in automating the work. Whereas before craftsmen used hand planes and chisels, newer craftsmen used electric shapers and planers. And later, CNC machines stepped in to produce delicate and complicated designs in a fraction of the time - and frequently even more precisely and more cleanly - than anyone with a carving chisel could do.

And that is the part which is NOT being effectively duplicated in IT.

Sure, AI can automate the work, but instead of maintaining quality, said quality of work is also taking a nosedive in tandem with the quality of materials.

And that is what is discouraging me six ways to Sunday. It’s garbage on both sides of the coin, and not just one. There is no part of the equation in which I can still take pride in. It’s all depressive, disgusting slop that I would be ashamed to put my name to.