Signals / Research archive
Reporting, research, data, and ideas I’m following about AI, labor, education, industrial capacity, and the people required to build what comes next.
What I’m watching
The useful question is not simply whether AI will replace jobs. It is which tasks move to machines, which human capabilities become more valuable, and whether our training systems can keep pace.
I’m following job redesign, human-plus-AI work, knowledge loss, new roles, training gaps, and what technological change looks like in physical industries.
Research archive
A dated collection of evidence and perspectives, preserved because each piece helps explain how work, capability, and industrial capacity are changing. Voices are included as perspectives, not endorsements.
39 pieces
Boeing
Boeing projects demand for 728,000 new maintenance technicians globally through 2045. Two thirds of total aviation personnel demand will replace people leaving through retirement and attrition, while one third supports fleet growth. Boeing also expects competency based assessment and immersive technology to change how technicians are trained.
Read the originalAI & AUTOMATION
Manufacturing USA
The 2026 Occupation and Competency Framework connects occupations, skills, employers, educators, and training pathways across advanced manufacturing technologies. It extends existing Department of Labor models and includes emerging work involving automation, robotics, AI, and data. The framework offers a credible national starting point for describing capability more precisely than job titles alone.
Read the originalBoeing + Drake State
Boeing and Drake State launched a paid technical apprenticeship with three skill pathways for Huntsville residents. The program combines hands on learning, mentorship, digital credentials, and a route into advanced manufacturing employment. It is a concrete example of an employer and college rebuilding the path from potential to production capability together.
Read the originalFederal Aviation Administration
FAA workforce-development grants are explicitly designed to recruit and prepare a more inclusive pipeline of pilots and aviation maintenance technicians.
Read the originalAWARD
Department of Defense · L.S. Black Constructors
A new munitions maintenance facility at Ellsworth Air Force Base is scheduled through June 2028. The award signals near-term demand for construction trades followed by specialized maintenance, logistics, safety, and installation capability around the B-21 program.
Read the originalAI & AUTOMATION
The New York Times
New York Times reporting follows Bay Area students choosing construction and electrical pathways as they weigh student debt, white collar uncertainty, and AI. The students are not simply avoiding technology; they are finding confidence and possibility through hands on work they had rarely encountered before. The piece makes the cultural case for rebuilding the experience and status of vocational education.
Read the originalAI & AUTOMATION
U.S. Government Accountability Office
As FAA evaluates emerging electric-aircraft designs, GAO says quantitative skill-gap assessments across mission-critical occupations would better prepare the agency for technological change.
Read the originalAWARD
Department of Defense · Viasat + Intelsat
Space Systems Command awarded procurement for space vehicles supporting the Protected Tactical Satellite-Global program, with work extending to 2029. The build horizon points toward systems engineering, integration, RF, space-vehicle production, test, and supply-chain demand.
Read the originalAWARD
Department of Defense · Deloitte & Touche
The award supports enterprise solutions, integration, and innovation for the Army Organic Industrial Base modernization plan through 2031. It signals sustained work connecting digital systems, facilities, production operations, data, and workforce change across Army manufacturing sites.
Read the originalU.S. Department of Education
Beginning July 1, students can use Pell Grants for eligible workforce programs lasting roughly eight to fifteen weeks. Programs must prepare people for high skill, high wage, in demand work and meet performance requirements. The policy creates a new funding path for accelerated technical education while making program quality and employment outcomes more consequential.
Read the originalFederal Aviation Administration
FAA’s 2026 awards include a 910-hour, supervised on-the-job training pilot in Alabama designed to prepare students for the AMT General test or further Airframe and Powerplant certification.
Read the originalU.S. Government Accountability Office
Pilot certifications grew about 10% from 2017 to 2024, while more than half of certified pilots as of 2024 will reach mandatory airline retirement age within 20 years. The signal is more complex than a single shortage narrative.
Read the originalCongressional Budget Office
CBO reports that workforce challenges are among the largest causes of delayed naval and Coast Guard ship construction. Major yards are trying to replace experienced workers while managing retention, design instability, supplier constraints, and rising costs. The testimony connects human capability directly to production schedules and national fleet capacity.
Read the originalGE Aerospace Foundation
The $30 million Lifting Futures program aims to prepare 10,000 workers by 2030 in regions tied to aerospace production and maintenance. Local plans will invest in classrooms, equipment, access, completion, and job placement rather than recruitment alone. The selected U.S. regions include Auburn, Cincinnati and Dayton, and Dallas.
Read the originalVOICE
AI & AUTOMATION
Daron Acemoglu + David Autor · MIT
Acemoglu and Autor push beyond job-loss forecasts toward a different design question: whether AI will primarily automate existing work or help people, including those without four-year degrees, perform valuable new tasks.
Read the originalVOICE
AI & AUTOMATION
Alex Karp · Palantir
Karp argues that AI will put pressure on some credentialed white-collar work while increasing the relative value of vocational, technical, and highly specific forms of capability. It is a provocative claim that deserves evidence and debate.
Read the originalAWARD
Department of Defense · Gravitics
The contract covers design, manufacture, integration, and flight demonstration of an orbital carrier through 2028. It creates a visible build horizon for space structures, manufacturing engineering, integration, test, quality, and mission operations.
Read the originalVOICE
Chris Power · Hadrian
In a conversation about the submarine industrial base, Power connects software-driven factories with the need to build far more manufacturing capacity and a workforce able to operate and improve it.
Read the originalU.S. Government Accountability Office
GAO reports that shortages of trained aircraft-maintenance personnel have contributed to Army, Navy, and Air Force difficulty meeting aircraft mission-capable goals.
Read the originalBUILD SYSTEM
Boeing · Safety & Quality Plan
Boeing reports expanded coaching, peer training, skill centers, more than 600 hours of new curriculum, and focused programs in tubing, torque, sealing, drilling, bonding and grounding, and interiors. This is a rare OEM signal that connects production performance directly to observable workforce capability.
Read the originalVOICE
AI & AUTOMATION
Jensen Huang · NVIDIA
Huang presents a more expansionary view: AI becomes infrastructure, raising productivity while creating demand across energy, construction, chips, data centers, skilled trades, and new digital work.
Read the originalU.S. Department of Energy
More than 80% of employers across nuclear construction, manufacturing, wholesale, professional services, and utilities experienced at least some hiring difficulty in 2024.
Read the originalBUILD SYSTEM
U.S. Navy · Palantir
The Navy is deploying Palantir software across the maritime industrial base, beginning with submarine builders, shipyards, and critical suppliers. The system can expose production bottlenecks; the remaining question is whether the network has the skills, training capacity, and succession depth to respond.
Read the originalVOICE
AI & AUTOMATION
Liz Shuler · AFL-CIO
The AFL-CIO’s worker-first position argues that AI can make work safer and better, but only when workers have a voice in its development and deployment, protections against harmful use, and a share in productivity gains.
Read the originalU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
BLS projects 5% employment growth for aircraft and avionics mechanics and technicians from 2024 to 2034, with about 13,100 annual openings. Many are replacement needs as workers transfer or retire.
Read the originalU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Employment for aerospace engineering and operations technologists and technicians is projected to grow 8% from 2024 to 2034, with roughly 900 openings annually.
Read the originalAI & AUTOMATION
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
BLS projects about 45,600 annual openings for welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers through 2034. Most are expected to come from people transferring occupations or leaving the labor force, including retirement, even as automation limits overall employment growth.
Read the originalAI & AUTOMATION
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
BLS projects about 34,200 annual openings for machinists and tool and die makers through 2034, all from workers transferring or exiting the labor force. The work is also changing as machinists set up, monitor, and maintain CNC systems, autoloaders, and high-speed machining equipment.
Read the originalAWARD
Department of Defense · Trust Automation
The Air Force award spans rapid development, prototyping, demonstration, production, and transition of unmanned and counter-unmanned aircraft capabilities through 2030. The workforce signal reaches hardware, embedded software, manufacturing, test, fielding, and sustainment.
Read the originalAI & AUTOMATION
U.S. Department of Labor
DOL awarded nearly $84 million to expand Registered Apprenticeships across advanced manufacturing, supply chain, transportation, construction, technology, and AI.
Read the originalVOICE
Katherine Boyle · a16z
Boyle’s American Dynamism thesis connects technology investment to the physical institutions, industrial systems, talent, and operating capacity required to build in the real world.
Read the originalVOICE
AI & AUTOMATION
Dario Amodei · Anthropic
Amodei argues that increasingly capable AI could eliminate a large share of entry-level white-collar roles and sharply increase unemployment. The warning is intentionally stark and worth tracking against emerging labor-market evidence.
Read the originalAI & AUTOMATION
Deloitte
In Deloitte’s 2025 survey, 85% of respondents agreed that smart-manufacturing initiatives can help attract talent, suggesting technology changes both the work and the story industry tells prospective workers.
Read the originalBUILD SYSTEM
Anduril · Arsenal-1
Anduril says Arsenal-1 will support hyperscale production and create 4,000 direct jobs in Ohio. ArsenalOS is intended to make production adaptable across products; the workforce signal is the scale and speed at which technicians, manufacturing engineers, quality teams, and frontline leaders must be assembled.
Read the originalAI & AUTOMATION
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
BLS expects generative AI to improve design, predictive maintenance, and technician efficiency, while regulation, quality control, and commercial aviation demand keep the underlying occupations strong.
Read the originalU.S. Department of Energy
DOE reported 142,000 additional clean-energy jobs in 2023. Construction added nearly 90,000 energy jobs, revealing both opportunity and a growing need for skilled field labor.
Read the originalBUILD SYSTEM
Lockheed Martin · 1LMX
Lockheed Martin’s enterprise transformation connects model-based engineering, digital factories, data, and end-to-end business processes. The workforce question is not only adoption: it is which roles change, which capabilities become scarce, and whether suppliers can make the same transition.
Read the originalThe Manufacturing Institute + Deloitte
The U.S. may need 3.8 million additional manufacturing workers between 2024 and 2033. Without changes to the talent system, the study estimates half of those roles could remain vacant.
Read the originalFAA Women in Aviation Advisory Board
The FAA advisory report identified difficulty hiring and retaining qualified AMT faculty, leakage of graduates into other industries, and weak mechanisms for converting military maintenance experience into civilian credentials.
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