The Steinmetz Lesson
Deep domain expertise has long fascinated me. My favorite tale on the subject involves Charles Proteus Steinmetz. Roughly a century ago, the Prussian-American engineer billed Henry Ford $10,000 for quickly solving a thorny production problem.
Steinmetz did, and submitted the invoice to Ford. Ford balked, and asked his hired help to itemize it. The Wizard of Schenectady gladly did as follows:
Making chalk mark on generator $1.
Knowing where to make mark $9,999.
Ford remitted payment.
A Century Later
It took decades for Steinmetz to become proficient in mathematics and electrical engineering. A poseur he was not. At the time of his death in 1923, he held more than 200 patents. Imagine what the polymath could have done with today's crop of genAI tools.
Today anyone can easily access the greatest cheat codes in human historyโand not just college students too lazy to write their own papers. Claude, ChatGPT, and their ilk are remarkable Swiss Army Knives.
Anyone can appear to be an expert on anything.
Anyone can appear to be an expert on anything. As one of many examples, a mediocre programmer can pose as an advanced one. Ditto for writers, designers, lawyers, and architects.
The cost isn't time to learn one's craft ร la Steinmetz, but tokens:
Phil Simon
Simon Says
It's only a matter of time before Anthropic, OpenAI, and other companies raise prices, restrict features, or some combination of the two. (Yep, enshittification at its finest.) Perhaps in an attempt to prepare themselves for the inevitable, senior leaders are increasingly pruning their organizations' AI budgets.
Have at it. Just remember the lesson that Henry Ford learned: true subject-matter experts aren't cheap.
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