AMT Tech Trends: Digital Win

AMT Tech Trends · Digital Win

Episode 94: Ben and Steve declare war on corporate jargon. It needs to stop! Benjamin has joined the hype train on advanced AM polymers. Stephen fires ze missiles… well, Northrop Grumman does from the F/A18. Ben waves the green flag for Hexagon and Hendrick’s NASCAR partnership. Steve shares ChatGPT for dummies.

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Produced by Ramia Lloyd

Transcript

Benjamin Moses: Hello. And welcome to the AMT Tech Trends Podcast, where we discuss the latest manufacturing technology, research, and news. Today's episode is sponsored by Modern Machine Shop Made in the USA Podcast. I am the Senior Director of Technology, Benjamin Moses, and I'm here with...

Stephen LaMarca: The regular Technology Analyst, Stephen LaMarca.

Benjamin Moses: We should put that on your card. Regular.

Stephen LaMarca: Regular. Not junior, not senior. Just regular.

Benjamin Moses: Just mid.

Stephen LaMarca: Kind of mid.

Benjamin Moses: Steve, we're in a corporate world, we're in a trade association. Let's talk about corporate buzzwords.

Stephen LaMarca: Oh, man.

Benjamin Moses: You posted something, and I thought it was very applicable, because-

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: ... let's be honest. It's not needed, but-

Stephen LaMarca: I have to say, without calling anybody out, we are blessed that we don't hear a lot of corporate lingo.

Benjamin Moses: I'm kind of actively avoid it.

Stephen LaMarca: But then again, we're not executive staff. But we don't have to hear a lot of corporate lingo.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: But what are some of our worst offenders? What do we... Not who. Not who are our worst offenders.

Benjamin Moses: I know. What-

Stephen LaMarca: But what are some of the ones? Like if we could end today-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... if we could delete from people's glossaries, what would we get rid of today?

Benjamin Moses: I got a couple from the link that you posted. Can I go through those first?

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: Because those are really good.

Stephen LaMarca: Full disclosure, that Instagram video that I sent-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... I don't think those are real, but they were really funny and they were very relatable. I think they were totally made up for that video, but they are so accurate-

Benjamin Moses: They are.

Stephen LaMarca: ... in that you could hear these.

Benjamin Moses: And if you want the meaning behind these buzzwords, check out the show notes. You can watch the video.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: So the first one is, "Milk the cow from the inside." This one's offensive, but I thought it was pretty good, "Hit on the ugly person at the bar."

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. Yeah. That one was...

Benjamin Moses: That was rough.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: If someone's dropping that in the conversation, we need to have a conversation about that.

Stephen LaMarca: Dude, you got to talk to HR.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. And the last one, "Pee from the rooftop and tell people it's raining." I'm pretty sure I've heard that before.

Stephen LaMarca: It can't be real. It can't be real. But it totally makes sense. It's so applicable.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: It's totally something executive staff would do to junior staff. "I just tell him it's raining."

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: "It's not in the budget." That's...

Benjamin Moses: Steve, what are some of yours?

Stephen LaMarca: I hate hearing belly buttons.

Benjamin Moses: Belly button. That's gross.

Stephen LaMarca: I really hate... Just say like... I get it. You can't say manpower today.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: And everybody has a belly button. I don't want to know that.

Benjamin Moses: No. No. Belly buttons are gross.

Stephen LaMarca: They are. Sorry. Just say-

Benjamin Moses: People?

Stephen LaMarca: ... workforce, people.

Benjamin Moses: Humans.

Stephen LaMarca: What's so hard about saying people?

Benjamin Moses: Yeah, yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: "We don't need too many people on this." How much harder is that to say than, "Yeah, we don't need too many belly buttons." Gross.

Benjamin Moses: That's gross.

Stephen LaMarca: You've already... I'm not listening anymore.

Benjamin Moses: No, no.

Stephen LaMarca: I'm disengaged.

Benjamin Moses: I've tuned out. I'm staring at the person's belly button now.

Stephen LaMarca: A great... I never even thought about this. Well, first off, when I heard this next one-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... I was still pretty new to that corporate life, yo. And an old colleague of ours had to point it out to me and, sadly, had to spell out to me how offensive, terribly offensive it was.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: And this is a real one, and I bet you some people will hear this. But, "Let's open the kimono."

Benjamin Moses: That's gross.

Stephen LaMarca: How terrible is that? We shouldn't... You could say, "Let's kick the tires."

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: "Let's take it for a test drive."

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: Or, "Open the hood before we have any serious conversations."

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: But open the kimono?

Benjamin Moses: That's gross. That's probably the most-

Stephen LaMarca: It's kind of like... I don't know if your parents ever had this conversation with you, but it's like the first time you say something sucks in front of your parents-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... and your parents have that awkward like, "Stephen, do you know what that expression means?" And I'm like, "Oh, this just got real. And it didn't become... It's not fun anymore."

Benjamin Moses: So no, my parents never had a conversation about sex ed, and I didn't take sex ed till 12th grade. So my parents are late as much as possible.

Stephen LaMarca: Well, I'm not even talking about the education part.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah, yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: I'm talking about raunchy expressions-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah, yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... that should, in fact, be like censored.

Benjamin Moses: No, no.

Stephen LaMarca: But-

Benjamin Moses: I just got beaten. So let's go. There's two more that-

Stephen LaMarca: Oh my God. This is so inappropriate.

Benjamin Moses: ... I wrote down here.

Stephen LaMarca: Okay.

Benjamin Moses: Touch base.

Stephen LaMarca: Touch base. Yeah. To heck with touch base.

Benjamin Moses: Can we just call it-

Stephen LaMarca: Touch base. Let's just talk. Let's just keep the conversation going. It's like, "Hey, we're both busy, but we want to keep this going."

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. "When can we meet again? Let's talk."

Stephen LaMarca: When can we meet? Exactly.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Let's touch base. "Oh, let's touch base later." Shut up. We're not on... I've never been on a base. Actually, I have. But we're not in the military.

Benjamin Moses: No, no.

Stephen LaMarca: We're working for an organization, sir.

Benjamin Moses: I'm not playing baseball. I'm not going to touch any base.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah, I'm not an athlete. I'm absolutely not an athlete.

Benjamin Moses: I once was many years ago. The last one, I wrote down.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: Ping.

Stephen LaMarca: My name's not in the ceiling. We're not working on a submarine. These are very military related though.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah, that's true. It did.

Stephen LaMarca: Maybe this corporate lingo like ping and touch base, like etymologically speaking, come from ex-military-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... working for government contractors, and we are in the beltway, bandit area.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah, yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: We're outside, right out along the beltway with [inaudible 00:06:01] Northrop across the street. Wow.

Benjamin Moses: That's a good conspiracy we should start.

Stephen LaMarca: Wow.

Benjamin Moses: See, there's a couple of things that I wanted to add to this list, but they're not really buzzwords, but they're just... Everything's digital now. I can see a bunch of years ago, using abbreviations or shortening words to make things faster, but it doesn't make sense anymore. So when I see emails or instant messages, and people say, "THX." T-H-X.

Stephen LaMarca: Oh, no.

Benjamin Moses: Could you just put "Thanks"?

Stephen LaMarca: Oh, no.

Benjamin Moses: Why do you need to shorten that? What are you saving?

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. Oh, like the email lingo.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: I feel like email lingo is a little bit different from corporate lingo.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Because corporate's very try hard.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: Email is like, "I want to smack you upside of the face, but we need to keep this professional, because these emails are tracked and could be pulled for HR reasons."

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: "As per my last email," I already told you this.

Benjamin Moses: Yes.

Stephen LaMarca: Why am I repeating myself? This is documented. It's okay to repeat yourself when you're actually speaking to somebody.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: That's fine.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: Because there's no history of things that are said.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: It's hearsay. But when it's-

Benjamin Moses: Written language, it's there.

Stephen LaMarca: ... written down, you shouldn't have to repeat yourself. "As per my last email..." oh, you messed up. That's like a southerner saying, "Bless your heart." Or some people's children, or "I'll keep you in my prayers." "As per my last email..."

Benjamin Moses: I've busted that out, similar, in the same tone, "As per the contract."

Stephen LaMarca: Well, I feel like that's not as offensive.

Benjamin Moses: No, no, no.

Stephen LaMarca: Because not a lot of people read contracts all the way through. They give them a bit of TOM glancing.

Benjamin Moses: But the tone is harsh.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. Yeah. But-

Benjamin Moses: The other one-

Stephen LaMarca: But signing off an email with-

Benjamin Moses: "THX"?

Stephen LaMarca: I'm not going to name any names, because I love my job, but I have seen emails signed off with... "Cheers," that's great.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: You want to pretend you're from Europe. Signing it off with T-H-A-N-X?

Benjamin Moses: Oh, no.

Stephen LaMarca: You know...

Benjamin Moses: That's what we're doing now.

Stephen LaMarca: It tracks with somebody that used to use their standard font as Comic Sans.

Benjamin Moses: Not the Comic Sans.

Stephen LaMarca: But I will say that, jokingly-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... in a, what's that hipster term? Ironically, I have signed off emails-

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: ... with the letter K, all lowercase.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: The letter K space T-H-X space B-Y-E. K THX Bye. That one-

Benjamin Moses: That's pretty good.

Stephen LaMarca: You need to say... That's like the New York "Bing Bong." You need to close off a conversation, "K THX Bye." But if you want to offend somebody-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... "Thanks for playing."

Benjamin Moses: Thanks for playing.

Stephen LaMarca: I've never seen that on an email.

Benjamin Moses: That's very funny.

Stephen LaMarca: That would get HR.

Benjamin Moses: I'm going to add some of these abbreviations in my emails going forward. Steve, before we talk about the [Test Bed 00:09:06], can you tell us about today's sponsor?

Stephen LaMarca: Today's sponsor, Modern Machine Shop Made in the USA Podcast. Tune in for Modern Machine Shops Made in the USA Podcast to explore manufacturing issues faced by companies making an intentional choice to manufacture in the US. Featuring commentary from OEM leaders made in the USA blends its nearly century long expertise with a unique audio storytelling experience to shine a spotlight on the past, present, and future of American manufacturing. Find Made in the USA on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms. Follow Modern Machine Shop on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I read that perfectly.

Benjamin Moses: That was a good job, Steve.

Stephen LaMarca: Dude, I crushed that. That was a one take wonder.

Benjamin Moses: We should save that forever. Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: I'm sorry, I had to call it out.

Benjamin Moses: It's surprisingly gratifying how... Or how gratifying it is to read something perfectly on air.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: It's just reading. But when it comes through, it feels so good.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah, it does.

Benjamin Moses: I want to talk about a brief update on the Test Bed, because-

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: ... the value is growing to our partner organizations.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. A while back, last year, Q4 last year-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... our buddy [Sharab 00:10:19] was back in the office for three months.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: And he was working closely with NIST. He was back forth between our office and NIST, National Institute of Standards Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland. NIST, we've got some new people over at NIST, and we've been working closely with them and Sharab introduced us to them, and they came over to, one, checkout our Test Bed, namely the Pocket NC. And long story short, they have since acquired a Pocket NC.

Benjamin Moses: Nice.

Stephen LaMarca: And I'm so pumped that they have a Pocket NC, because it's just such a great little machine. Oh, I got to reach out to them, by the way. Penta Machine, the manufacturer of the Pocket NC, I got to reach out to Penta to let them know that, "Hey, NIST has one of your machines."

Benjamin Moses: I recall.

Stephen LaMarca: "Just so you know."

Benjamin Moses: We should reach out to them when we go visit NIST.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. It's kind of a big deal. You guys are big for being so little.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. We should go up there and map out where they're headed, because I think we can probably parallel buy some things that-

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: ... they're probably looking at too.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. But they got a Pocket NC because of us.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: And they have also asked for all of our programs-

Benjamin Moses: Nice.

Stephen LaMarca: ... that we've used, and I've sent them over twice. And it's just a nice budding relationship. And I'm glad to see, not just that the Test Bed is helping other people, potential partners and companies, see the value in a Test Bed.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: And great, not affordable, accessible equipment.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: But also see our little guy member companies getting this exposure because of us.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: That's really like wholesome content.

Benjamin Moses: That's fun. Yeah. That's fun. Steve, I want to get into a couple of articles. I got one on additive, but it's a little twist on it.

Stephen LaMarca: Okay.

Benjamin Moses: Most of our additive content has been metals based, which is... That's a tough stuff. But this article talks about polymers, the transformative power of innovation, additive materials. And it talks about if we want additive to grow, materials related to additive also has to grow. And the entire article's about polymers. And I know we've seen a lot of usage of shifting from metal based additive to polymers and the material sciences to support that.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: And that's been very interesting. Oak Ridge has done a lot of testing on improving the tensile strength and toughness of polymers.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: So it's very similar. It's for molds and things like that, where it's very interesting use cases.

Stephen LaMarca: Right.

Benjamin Moses: This article has a couple key categories. So one is prioritizing polymer science. And here, they're talking about the value and capability of changing the grain structure or crystalline structure from amorphous to a actual crystal structure for a couple of reasons. One is significant strength, and the process to get there. So I thought that was very interesting of, yeah, we have basic materials, but we can improve the capability by the different processing capabilities of additive. And hits on a couple other ones. And it ends on a weakness right now, defining the polymer value chain. So as we talk about switching, potentially, to polymers-

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: ... spotlight on sustainability. So a lot of times when we look at large platforms, we do talk about from design to, well, the term is, another key buzzword here, but corporate buzzword is cradle to grave.

Stephen LaMarca: Oh.

Benjamin Moses: If we're designing an aircraft, how do you design manufacture? And then what do you do at end of life? What happens when you're not using that plane anymore? You strip everything out. Can you reuse it? Can you recycle that? So I think they're hitting on the sustainability side for polymers. Lightweight and localization. And I thought that was a key term. We've seen a lot of efforts with the lift on making things lightweight, shifting materials.

Stephen LaMarca: Oh, yeah.

Benjamin Moses: I thought that was pretty good. And the last one I do agree with, there are issues on repeatability and reliable processes.

Stephen LaMarca: Absolutely.

Benjamin Moses: So in aerospace, once something's printed and certified as out of heart, you're stuck to that machine. You're stuck to that process. Being able to scale up the same way you can subtractive or traditional manufacturing processes is not the same for additive, and they definitely hit on that as a weakness. So I thought it is a very, very well-rounded article about connecting the trajectory of additive with material sciences.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

Benjamin Moses: Look like you got something on your mind.

Stephen LaMarca: No. I'm just processing all of that.

Benjamin Moses: It's a lot to take in.

Stephen LaMarca: What an awkward pause. But I like that you mentioned earlier that polymers are really blowing up.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Because I'm glad that the additive industry is so persistent.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Because towards the beginning, I remember back in 20... Maybe as far back as 2016.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: When additive was in the ETC at IMTS.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: There was a lot of... Well, there was a handful of additive companies right there in that spotlight of IMTS, right next to the main stage.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: But a lot of the grumbling was, "We work with metal." You don't see wood turning blades at IMTS.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: You see metal blades.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: "Why do we have plastic AM... Why do we have polymer AM here? We should be focusing on metal additive." And that grumblings not gone.

Benjamin Moses: True.

Stephen LaMarca: But it's certainly-

Benjamin Moses: Gone down?

Stephen LaMarca: ... it's coming down. And that's because... That's not for no reason. That's because the development in polymers has been so impressive.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: And just look... Forget the chemical structure and the features of using metal over polymer, even though they're diminishing.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: When you look at the manufacturing process itself, where the processes available in AM, polymer has such an advantage in terms of cost and surface finish.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: Both. Both of them. And even speed in some cases. So I hate to sound like the graduate, but plastics could be the future here.

Benjamin Moses: Not bad.

Stephen LaMarca: And yeah, there's a lot of... There's constant arguments regarding sustainability. And I, for one, I love talking smack about the fact that we keep adding to the trash pile in the Pacific Ocean-

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: ... of plastic bottles and straws and whatnot. But the truth is, as long as we're still dependent on gasoline, I don't have a problem with that, because I love burning gas, there will be polymer byproducts.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: And it's got to go somewhere. And because the stuff is virtually free, we may as well use it.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: At least until we're loading it onto rocket ships and sending it into the sun. Because we got to keep this energy that is not created or destroyed in a cycle.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: And if we send it to the sun, it burns, creates light, that light comes back, we absorb it as energy. It is a cycle. It is the best way to keep things closed loop is to put in a rocket and send it to the sun. We're not there yet.

Benjamin Moses: Not there yet.

Stephen LaMarca: I swear to you, we will. In 80 years, they'll look back and be like, "Stephen, he actually was onto something." Hopefully.

Benjamin Moses: Hopefully.

Stephen LaMarca: But yeah, it's the development in polymers and plastics-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... we're seeing... It's not the 1960s anymore. The military doesn't care that rifles are no longer made of iron and wood, and are now made of aluminum and plastic.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Plastic's been around. It's pretty successful. We'll take care of that island, eventually.

Benjamin Moses: Steve, tell me about simulated testing and the Digital Twin-

Stephen LaMarca: Oh, yeah.

Benjamin Moses: ... and missiles.

Stephen LaMarca: So the Northrop Goobers across the street from us have recently announced, well at least an article came out in Interesting Engineering that they have tested, for the fifth time, their new long range air-to-ground missile.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: I'm calling that... I'm not using their terms, because their terms are very confusing. I had to reread the article several times, and explaining it to you, I even had to clarify something.

Benjamin Moses: I was so lost.

Stephen LaMarca: It's so confusing. Anyway, Northrop Grumman has developed a new air-to-air, or air-to-ground missile to be deployed from the F/A-18-

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: ... and can probably be deployed from other air airframes as well.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: But they're focusing on the F/A-18 right now, because we have the most of them.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: And specifically, it is a long range supersonic air-to-ground missile for taking out anti-aircraft installments.

Benjamin Moses: Interesting. Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: So it's not for shooting, destroying tanks, it's not for taking out buildings, or bridges, or airstrips. It is specifically for shooting or destroying AA guns.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: SAM's, surface-to-air missiles for shooting down other aircraft. It is a defensive, defensive munition, and one to be deployed at a long range.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: Now, doesn't sound very manufacturing. Here's what's very cool in manufacturing about it. They've tested it for the fifth time. However, this fifth time is the first time they've done it in IRL, in real life, because all of the testing they've done to develop this munition has been done in the Digital Twin.

Benjamin Moses: Wow, that's cool.

Stephen LaMarca: It's been entirely developed in the Digital Twin.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: And because of the boomers at the top brass, they still want to see something explode in real life.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Which I don't mind.

Stephen LaMarca: They probably like... Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: Let's have fun.

Stephen LaMarca: Let me tell you something, we're not going to digitize the 4th of July anytime soon, let's put it that way. And they want to see some fireworks.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: So for technically the fifth test, but the first time in an actual deployment... That's wrong. They haven't deployed it. In the first real life test, they shot this munition, and it was perfect.

Benjamin Moses: And it worked? Wow.

Stephen LaMarca: Worked just as they planned.

Benjamin Moses: That's cool. And it's cool to see that it's as planned, basically. And that's a very boring phrase, but it's actually very exciting to hear when you digitally test something, and then you test in real life, and it just works.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. And I think it's hilarious, because it kind of goes against the term Digital Twin.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: It's really the real twin.

Benjamin Moses: Right. Yeah. Exactly.

Stephen LaMarca: Because the digital thing first.

Benjamin Moses: Right. Yeah. Interesting. Thanks, Steve. I've got one from Speed Sport. It'll departure, but-

Stephen LaMarca: Speed Sport?

Benjamin Moses: Hexagon partners with Hendrick to drive racing innovation.

Stephen LaMarca: O. Heck yeah.

Benjamin Moses: And we've seen other manufacturers partner with racing groups, and this is an interesting one.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: So what they're looking for is a new collaborative robot inspection capabilities to eliminate bottlenecks. So manufacturing in high performance, high watched racing series, there's a lot of internal manufacturing, and a lot of that's kept for, basically, their proprietary parts, but also for quick turnaround. So they don't have to rely on external suppliers. They get a part designed, they can manufacture it in their own facility, basically, control their own destiny. And what's interesting about this is shifting their capabilities as opposed to buying additive, buying a mill, buying a lathe. They're looking at the backend to improve their operational efficiency on their manufacturing side for the racing team.

So they go over a couple of interesting things here. The cloud robot, which I thought was interesting, being able to add inspection equipment to there, in addition to some CMMs also.

Stephen LaMarca: Wow.

Benjamin Moses: And I think it's a good point that they bring up an article too. They diversify their probing and non-contact measurement capability. So they're expanding, automating to improve their bottleneck, but also growing the capabilities at the same time. So I thought that was a fascinating-

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: ... look into one partnerships. And I think there's a lot of value for Hexagon, obviously, also to see, what does that environment look like? They're basically in a low volume, high mix environment. Can they switch parts around quickly and keep manufacturing capabilities there?

Stephen LaMarca: I got to say, one thing I'm really proud of and happy, I feel blessed, is for AMT hiring me and bringing me into this industry is that my whole life, being a fan of Motorsports-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... I've never known who 90% of those companies are, sponsored companies on the side of the track-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... or even on the side of the cars are. And I feel like I'm able to recognize so many companies now, knowing who Hexagon is-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... and seeing them on the side of an F1 car-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: .... Siemens, whoever.

Benjamin Moses: That's cool.

Stephen LaMarca: And it's not just an oil and gas company, or you know.

Benjamin Moses: A cigarette company.

Stephen LaMarca: Or a super wealthy air carrier from the Middle East. Or cigarettes company, yeah. Nothing profound.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: So that is cool.

Benjamin Moses: Steve, I want to end on some very interesting new technology that we've been testing for a bit.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: But I think we've got some useful tips for our peoples.

Stephen LaMarca: So we've hyped up... We kind of wear it on our shoulder now. But one thing that Ben and I are super proprietors of is our use of AI-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: ... as a tool in what we do every day. But I found an article from Wired, titled 6 Tips for Using ChatGPT to Brainstorm Better.

Benjamin Moses: That's cool.

Stephen LaMarca: And while you and I are no stranger to open AI's playground, their raw programming platform for using their AI engine-

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: ... ChatGPT is a little bit more, not dumbed down, but a little bit more of a remedial version of that. They make it conversational. So for people, who don't know how to program the AI engine, they can have a conversation with it and get what they need out of it conversationally.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: But there are still even more people that like, "I don't know how to use this."

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: "I don't know if I should be using this."

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: But these are six tips on how you can use it to help you. Because at the end of the day, there's a huge concern that, and we've talked about this before, so I'll try not to drone on, that, "Oh, it's doing the work for you, it's doing your homework for you."

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: It's not, but it's really helpful.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: And for the people that can't see how it's helpful and don't quite understand how it doesn't do work for you, it's more like... I think a better example of, it's not like a calculator where you punch in, you just hit buttons, and then it pops up an answer. Number one, you have to know how to use a calculator.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: You have to know how math works still.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: As for with AI, you just have to know how to start the conversation, and then you need to know how to modify it from there. The AI helps you find the answer, and it just shows your work for you.

Benjamin Moses: That's right.

Stephen LaMarca: That's what AI does. And this article titled 6 Tips for Using ChatGPT to Brainstorm Better has some really solid tips that I can get behind. The first being, and the most obvious, but maybe not for some, find a clear starting point.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: What are you trying to accomplish? And type that out.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Type that out. What are you trying to get? And it won't always work, but to show that you are in fact smarter than the AI is, you will be able to tell whether or not it's wrong or not.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: The next one is the gauge the limitations of the bias and tools. I just transitioned into that. You should know, it should be relatively obvious when it's wrong, and you should be able to fix that for it, and at least reiterate to it and reclarify it, "I don't think that's right." And then it will double check itself. It will. And you can have it do, but you need to know to tell it to do that.

Benjamin Moses: That's what I found on all of the tools, even the pre-packaged ones that are part of a different software, is you always have to check its work.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.

Benjamin Moses: You can't just copy and paste. You can't take what it provides you and assume that's the truth. You always have to take, one, obviously, read it, but check the links or check the facts that it's on or repeating. And I found that very, very important.

Stephen LaMarca: When you plug in a 3D design in DO-CAM software and CAM spits out some G-code for you, are you going to throw the tool and the work piece, the stock material, into a machine and hit go and walk away?

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Absolutely not.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: You're going to simulate it, then you're going to air cut it.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Then maybe cut some wax, and then maybe if you don't have to send it back at all or retool anything, then you hit go. And on that first part, you're going to be hovering the EStop the entire time.

Benjamin Moses: Exactly.

Stephen LaMarca: It is the same thing.

Benjamin Moses: And I think the conversational side of that tool is very important in this, in that you should tell it that this is incorrect, or have the conversation to continue to get to the result that is correct.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. And some people, I get where some people are coming from, it's like, "Well, it's kind of scary when, eventually, it will get smart enough to where you won't be able to tell if it's incorrect." And it's like it's on you.

Benjamin Moses: Yes. That's on you.

Stephen LaMarca: That's on you.

Benjamin Moses: Got to raise your game.

Stephen LaMarca: Nobody's correct 100% of the time.

Benjamin Moses: Correct.

Stephen LaMarca: At the end of the day, it's called artificial intelligence. You can't have artificial intelligence without some artificial, without starting with artificial idiocy. And it's trying to match humans. Humans aren't flawless. Why should we expect this robot to? And if a robot is flawless, or a computer is flawless, then yeah, it deserves every right to take over. Okay.

Benjamin Moses: Next one.

Stephen LaMarca: Keep your prompts persistent. Keep probing, keep asking the same thing until... It's like iterative design.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: The idea of the persistency is correcting it until the resultant is right, or feels right and is good for you.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: And sometimes that doesn't involve the AI, but when you're prompting it, you need to... So it doesn't hurt to reiterate, as per my last email. Ask for long lists, better lists, and weirder lists.

Benjamin Moses: That's cool.

Stephen LaMarca: I've found I've had great success asking for lists, asking for lists of companies.

Benjamin Moses: Okay.

Stephen LaMarca: Now, there was one time when it was wrong, because shopping for a robot arm, I was like, "Hey, ChatGPT, I'm trying to find an affordable industrial robot arm. We've got a budget of 10K, so try to keep it around 10K, or below." And it comes out with a list of big name robot companies that we know.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: Your FANUC, ABB.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: UR. And it's like spitting out model names-

Benjamin Moses: Wow.

Stephen LaMarca: ... that I know.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: I know the FANUC's CR-35iA.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: I know the UR3. I'm not as familiar with KUKAs and stuff like that. And ABBs. I'm a little familiar with Kawasakis, but I'm familiar enough-

Benjamin Moses: That is not-

Stephen LaMarca: ... being that I have a corporate budget for it, that these are not around 10K. And it was blatantly incorrect saying that, "You can pick up a FANUC CR-35iA for 13K." It's like, no, you cannot. I don't think you can get that for below 30K.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. So check your work.

Stephen LaMarca: Got to have it. Check your work.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: It's like, "Hey, Chat. Show me where you got these numbers."

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: "I need links right now, because if these are real, then we're ready to swipe the card. But I have a feeling I don't even need to look at my wallet yet."

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: So let's see what's next. Ask for long lists are great. Mock up a few examples.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah, that's cool.

Stephen LaMarca: Just like when I speak on this podcast using analogies sometimes, it's like, analogies are like a coaxial or a parallel example to something. Using examples helps everybody understand better. Analogies don't always, but I don't always have a good example. I might have a better analogy. But examples always help people understand more. And at the end of the day, if you want a good result from AI, you need to give it a good input.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: It's like we're learning how to use the Google search engine all over again. You can't just put in some keyboard barf right into the search bar and expect to get good results.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Every now and then, you get lucky. Which is why Google took off, because they've got some algorithms in there that work pretty well. And then lastly, stay open-minded about potential applications.

Benjamin Moses: Cool.

Stephen LaMarca: And the way I read this tip is, try to use ChatGPT for more than what you need it to.

Benjamin Moses: Oh, that's fair.

Stephen LaMarca: Ask it anything.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: When I get home, at the end of the day, I'm done writing.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: I don't want to write anything else. I can barely bang out text messages to people.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: I do not like writing.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: And sometimes when I get home, Melissa will ask me, "Hey, can you help me respond to this email from my CEO?"

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: And I'm like... "I should-

Benjamin Moses: You got to support her somehow, man.

Stephen LaMarca: And then I'll be like... This one time, I think I've talked about this before, a raise negotiation.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: I don't want to spill all the beans, but I'm like, "I have this brilliant idea." I'm like, "Do me a favor, send me that email that he sent you on Slack." Because I've got Slack on my gaming PC.

Benjamin Moses: Sure.

Stephen LaMarca: And I threw it into ChatGPT.

Benjamin Moses: Okay.

Stephen LaMarca: I was like, "Hey, this is what so-and-so... This is what we're trying to get out of this."

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: "This is the email they sent. How should we reply?"

Benjamin Moses: Oh.

Stephen LaMarca: The first query, or that first query got a solid result.

Benjamin Moses: Okay.

Stephen LaMarca: And it was like... Not going to lie, it was like 70, 80% there.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: But we wanted to fine tune some things to make the delivery that much better.

Benjamin Moses: Right.

Stephen LaMarca: And it went back and forth between Grammarly and another AI in ChatGPT.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: And eventually, after three to five queries or dialogues back and forth, we got the perfect response email to send it, and we shipped it off, and long story short-

Benjamin Moses: Got a win?

Stephen LaMarca: ... got a huge raise.

Benjamin Moses: Wow.

Stephen LaMarca: So yeah. Try to use it for anything. I mean, tonight, I might ask it to make a shopping list. I want to make some pasta bolognese.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: "Make me a shopping list." I don't want to think about this stuff, man.

Benjamin Moses: That'd be fun.

Stephen LaMarca: I just want to go to the grocery store and grab stuff off the shelf.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Yeah. Good luck with that. Let us know how that turns out.

Stephen LaMarca: I'm not going to do that.

Benjamin Moses: Okay.

Stephen LaMarca: I'll find it to do... But just the example I'm trying to make is-

Benjamin Moses: We should talk about use cases more often.

Stephen LaMarca: ... get it do-

Benjamin Moses: Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca: Try to get it to do anything.

Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Share your use cases for ChatGPT.

Stephen LaMarca: Okay.

Benjamin Moses: I'm telling the audience here.

Stephen LaMarca: Yeah, definitely do that. Comment down below, like, share and subscribe.

Benjamin Moses: Steve, where can they find more info about us?

Stephen LaMarca: AMTonline.org/resources.

Benjamin Moses: Bye, everyone.

Stephen LaMarca: Bing bong.

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