The day will come when only a perceptive and forward-thinking CEO will be able—and indeed must—stop the quest for improvement! So that there may still remain, here and there, particularly in a mechanical timepiece embodying industrial excellence, a touch of humanity.
Joël A. Grandjean, JSH Magazine & Swiss-Watch-Passport.ch’s editor in chief
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©picture David Olifson @La Bagatelle Genève
I am referring here to large-scale production, not to all those niche markets that celebrate and elevate the handmade. For the intelligent machine uses AI to correct itself and adapt. It learns from its mistakes and eventually becomes so perfect that it risks giving rise to something cold and ‘soulless’. It imitates the operator so well – without the fatigue, the blisters and the lapses in concentration – that it is even capable of simulating their inescapable imperfections, the flaws of their human condition!
Just to prove that there’s still a bit of humanity here and there, even in a mechanical timepiece born of Swiss industrial excellence”
This very real new danger looms over mass-production watchmaking, which, for the first time in its industrialization, must contend with the machine itself. This observation is not my own. I heard it from a boss in the watchmaking industry. He spoke almost against his will, as he had to go against his own engineering training—someone trained precisely to eliminate, through the precision of his plans and programming, even the most imperceptible imperfections. According to him, it is urgent to focus on what can still be perceived as a “human touch.” Because the enhanced Industry 4.0 machine learns quickly! It has no qualms and even fascinates those who conceived it.
Yet a watch remains a marvel—one created by over a hundred components that interlock and work together to ensure the most precise timekeeping possible. Considered a genius of his time, an elderly watchmaker once confessed to me that it is far easier to figure out why a watch isn’t working than to understand why it works! Implicitly, this master craftsman, this true “golden-fingered” artisan, acknowledged that part of humanity which, like a time-delayed treasure, lies dormant within the Swiss-made heart of every mechanical timepiece. The humility of the watchmaker—so very much human…
The Smart 4.0 Machine mimics the worker so well, without the fatigue, the blisters, or the moments of sluggishness, that it can even simulate the worker’s inevitable imperfections!”
