Comment Re:Tooling exceeds Machinist Cost (Score 1) 83
The most important difference in all your examples is things like tooling and equipment are either strictly necessary to complete the job, or produce so much value in terms of productivity that they are worth the cost. Also, most tooling and equipment lasts longer than an AI token so the cost tends to get spread our over several jobs...
Using AI coding agents has not proven to increase quality or productivity in any meaningful way - increased volume of code does not mean productivity unless you're a middle manager. It's known that it is not strictly needed for the software engineer to do their job. You are not improving the engineer's workflow by mandating AI use, you're just making it more expensive.
=Smidge=