Fungible Factories - by Ben Reinhardt - Spectech Newsletter
blog.spec.tech · 2,469 words · saved by 1 readers
From Interchangeable Parts to Interchangeable Specs
This is the written version of a talk I gave at the OSU HAMMER Engineering Research Center in February 2026 Every engineering field has its utopias: biotechnology has the immortality drug and mind uploading, computer science has the godlike AI and perfect external memory, aerospace has the flying car, warp drive, and O’Neil cylinder. The alchemists had their philosopher’s stone. In manufacturing, we have ours too — the Star Trek replicator and the von Neumann machine. Machines that can make anything, anywhere, even more of themselves. Machines that frictionlessly turn imagination into…
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