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Comment by LzeYing | Hacker News Reader

I believe this is exactly the kind of high-paying job that is difficult for AI to replace.

Mechanical timepieces are a luxury item, and these students are essentially artists in training. Wrist time was solved in the late 1970's with the commoditization of quartz movements. These 'jobs' will get replaced by AI at approximately the same pace as your local sculptor.

I don't know if watchmaking is one of them, but there are a bunch of traditional crafts which are actually approaching a danger point because there aren't enough up-and-coming acolytes in the discipline to replace them, even though the craft still enjoys enough popular support to have a thriving economy.

Anecdotally, I see enough mechanical watches on wrists and in duty-free shops that I imagine there's enough of a pipeline there for at least one school. Much like vinyl records it doesn't appear to actually be going away even if it's superfluous.

Good example of that is engraving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH3MtWln2Og

(ages ago, I was in touch with a person who described himself as "the last hand engraver in New York City" when considering an apprenticeship --- couldn't commit to the move --- always wondered if he found a successor)

Come to think of it, it makes sense; in this day and age, every industry is evolving so rapidly that the future remains quite uncertain.

I have a friend who got an English and Creative Writing degree from a liberal arts college, and then immediately went back to trade school for band instrument repair. It's not particularly lucrative, as trades go, but it does seem a lot more future proof than most careers.

I recently left my career as a software engineer to train to become a violin maker. Couldn't be happier.

Also looking to leave software, lots of options in front of me. Are you still in training, or are you making a living from it now?

I'm in training.

Haha, so you're going to do something AI can't replace, right?

Thinking about it. I'm pretty attracted to the idea of a career with some kind of protectionist licensing system, like doctor or actuary, but that may just be staving off the inevitable. Might teach high school.

After I got laid off in the US, I moved to a mountain town in New Zealand planning on being a ski lift operator while I think about the future, but got a software developer job by accident instead.

Taxis had a protectionist system. Took a single competitor with deep pockets and disregard for the system to upend the whole thing.

I still get emails from NZ begging for people to come fill IT jobs

It's great for a couple years, but compensation is so much lower here I wouldn't do it long term, except if you marry a local or are independently wealthy.

I make a third of what I did in the US, and my job in the US was in a medium cost of living area and wasn't a startup or big tech. Housing costs about the same amount.

I had the opportunity to take up a working holiday visa 10-12 years ago and never used it.

Yes, and it's a great example of an industry that was completely decimated by automation - you can get a functional watch for a fiver, whereas back when every watch was handmade and a de-facto inheritance piece.

But bespoke, handmade, high value, low volume stuff is still around.

Why?

Many modern watch parts are CNC machined, often the finishing is done by hand such as zaratsu polishing - but even that is a repetitive motion that can be mechanised.

I would not be surprised if given enough time even what we have today - a decent VLA model + some other specialised models, 6-axis CNC machine, an SMD pick and place etc would be capable of designing, manufacturing and assembling a mechanical watch.

Sure but it’s also a microscopically small component of the country’s overall economy.

canada's economy is roughly slightly below Mississipi with increasing amount of migration from third world countries putting strain on its resources and with almost no plans other than to tax the already overstretched middle class

its almost the exact dilemma in Western Europe except the only saving grace is military security is guaranteed by its larger and richer neighbor

> canada's economy is roughly slightly below Mississipi

No, it isn't. Not true in absolute terms, not true per capita, not true adjusted for purchasing power.

It is true per capita in USD dollars due to the weak Canadian dollar. Mississippi has better purchasing power

No, it isn't, at least according to here [1] (data from worldbank). This is in nominal USD as almost all calculations of GDP. If you compare by purchasing power, Canada likely pulls out ahead since Canada has a lower price level than the US [2] (can't find Mississippi-specific price level).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... section "U.S. states by GDP per capita if they were sovereign states"

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity

You can’t just say “no it isn’t” when your own link disagrees with you.

From your link per capita GDP for Mississippi $55,877 in 2025 compared with $60,305 in 2026 for Canada [1]. That seems pretty similar.

My point was that when the Canadian dollar is weak GDP in USD decreases while when it’s strong GDP increases without anything about the country’s output changing - that’s the challenging of comparing by normalizing against a single currency.

I’ll let you do your own purchasing power math but Mississippi has significantly cheaper prices as part of America than Canada. Canada has a stronger safety net but that isn’t about purchasing power to much other than health insurance being baked into your taxes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Canada

When I see these GDP comparisons between Mississippi and Europe or Canada I have to ask does anyone honestly believe that life in Mississippi is better than in any of those other two places? Especially if you have any knowledge of Mississippi. If anything this example shows us the limitations of using this statistic.

It always depends. You get people in Mississippi who don't have electric, pump water by hand and use an outhouse. (They are not Amish or otherwise religiously against technology they just can't afford it) you also find engineers and doctors making as much as anywhere else in the US.

Mississippi has great weather year round. Canada gets really cold (most of those I know in Canada live in Manitoba). Your standard of living without electric is higher in Mississippi than in Canada in winter. If you are the typical person in Mississippi with electric service you have a nice life. Sure it is a little better elsewhere but not by much. You likely have more toys than someone in Europe.

Most Canadians and Americans I'm guessing takes their cues from movies like My Cousin Vinny when they think Mississippi and probably have never ventured through it. I have. It is a very safe and clean city. There are ton of engineers and professionals out there making equal or more than what creme of the creme in Canada take home after taxes (another major point besides the exchange rate that puts Canadians behind America).

This is downtown Jackson, it looks to be in far better shape than many Canadian cities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQkKjiYu-qU

I haven't seen that movie, but I suspect I know the stereotypes. There are people like that, but the majority are just normal people like anywhere else in the world.

Jackson Mississippi has the highest per capita murder rate of any city in the United States. More than double that of Mexico.

My own link did not disagree with me. The claim was "Canada slightly below Mississippi". My link showed "Mississippi slightly below Canada". Both in the same year.

Did you intentionally move the goal posts or did you misunderstand?

absolutely. its the "poorest" state too

Canada's GDP is $2.2t vs $165b for Mississippi. Immigration rate is decreasing.

thanks for bringing this up and I have to reiterate the importance of per capita which is something that is curiously ignored in these discussions but I'm sure you know the difference from just measuring GDP alone and just forgot about it

Canada's nominal GDP per capita is roughly $53,800 USD, which places it nearly on par with Mississippi

also Canada admits people from third world countries at a per-capita rate roughly four times higher than the United States, with none of the enforcement agencies capable of tackling illegal immigration which a lot of this demographic engages in. It's difficult for ICE now imagine Canada which has no such enforcement on the same scale

my point is that Canada has a smaller economy but imports more from the third world than its much richer and powerful neighbor.

this is not a sustainable arrangement.

> It's difficult for ICE now imagine Canada which has no such enforcement on the same scale

A massive federal agency rounding up illegal immigrants actually isn't that effective, as has been seen in the USA. What actually works is making it impossible to find a job or housing without proof of citizenship - which is being done in Canada BTW

cnada does not make employment or housing impossible without proof of citizenship there are massive illegal labor market especially in the construction food service jobs. Also the check is minimal and poorly enforced or tracked. It's the same situation in rentals there are routine subletting via cash one of my partner so again the enforcement mechanisms fall apart here and you will see this to be a repeating pattern throughout canadian society where there are laws but are hardly enforced or resources spent equally.

if illegal presence has almost no chance of interior enforcement, then overstaying or working illegally becomes a rational bet. If arrests, detention, removals, and employer raids become credible again, behavior changes that's the whole point of ICE raids they know they can't deport millions of people but to change the behavior of the demographic that they are targeting. This is something that Canada neither has the political capital to pursue.

And still, Canada has higher living standards, better healthcare, school system, criminal justice and lower murder rates.

No, Canada is not as poor as Missisipy.

If you don't say the words “per capita”, you don't get credit for having said them.

Canada ranks 4th.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-canada-would-rank-as-th...

The Canada hater has logged on.

Correct, AI will not replathe 3 high-paying watch maker jobs that exist. You are the best kind of correct, technically. But you are distracting from the fact that most people aren't doing anything even remotely physical related in the space that some people posit will be decimated by AI: white-collar jobs where you are a keyboard jockey all day.

I am literally wearing a watch right now that was produced without any of these artisans’ specialized labor and which boasts among its features access to AI.

In a very real sense I have replaced use of the skills of watchmakers with AI.

Sorry about that. To be fair most watchmakers were already put out of work by quartz oscillators and integrated circuits in the 1980s.

The reason that you bought your watch and the reason that other people buy these hand crafted mechanical watches are very, very different. Once upon a time, utility used to be what necessitated an accurate movement, and it came at great cost because of the skill, knowledge, precision, and artistic talent needed to make one; this justified further embellishing the movement with a beautiful case and band because it would be in poor taste to make something that is both expensive and ugly when your primary consumers would be aristocrats. Eventually timepieces became commodified as industrialization made their manufacture feasible at a larger scale, and later then the advent of the quartz crystal made mechanical movements functionally obsolete as a means of telling time accurately. Approaching perfect timekeeping in a mechanical movement is not meant to be utilitarian, but rather a practice in artistry. Mechanical watches are jewelry, and jewelry irrationally commands the price that any luxury does because it's a matter of taste and not utility. Nobody buying a Patek Philippe is doing so because they want millisecond accuracy via atmoic clock GPS signals - they buy Seikos for that.

I think the fact that you can have a compact device on your wrist that accurately keeps time all without any battery or circuitry is really remarkable as well. Moreover that the “technology superior” smart watches are kind of distracting and don’t have a great deal of use value. My watch tells the time and the date, that’s really all I need it for

I long ago realized I hate how uncomfortable a watch on my wrist is. For a while I used a pocket watch until pocket sized cell phones became affordable.

Yet most people in the watch industry will suggest that the Apple Watch was a boon for the industry because it retrained people to wear a watch, a fashion that was being abandoned.

I’m one of those people. Wore watches regularly through my mid 20s, completely fell out of the habit as I spent more years working from home and my routine around “getting ready for the day” loosened, and the Apple Watch was the thing that got me to put something on my wrist again - until I got sick of the screen and kept wearing watches, but now analogue ones.

you need AI to tell the time?

Suprising amount of people do not know how to read time from the "classical" watches and clocks (those with hands).

Reason is very simple - they dont own clocks with hands when theh are kids.

Not knowing is fine, but a refusal to learn is not. I think that's the major issue with first social media / short attention span content, modern media over-explaining stuff, and nowadays with AI. Even if they get an answer from AI they won't take it in, just pass it on / read it out / apply it to whatever they're doing now and promptly forget it.

(I'm generalizing / being a cranky old man and I'm not even that old)

But... this is a condition that can be changed within 1 minute? (From "do not know" to "know").

Sure it takes longer to get proficient, but learning it is quicker than learning e.g. Roman numerals or how to tie a necktie.

No? And not what I said.

But an AI provider absolutely got some of the money I might otherwise have spent on a clockwork watch.

Not really. No one wants a Rolex or Omega with ChatGPT in it.

I don't know how high paying it is, although I can see how it can be, especially given there is a shortage of watchmakers in the developed world, even in Switzerland.

Is that because of a lack of interest or because the requirements and education required are just very high level and specialised?

Basically anything that is a luxury good is probably safe from AI. If people are buying it for status or high performance reasons, they aren’t going to pick the low end AI slop version.

Unless they’re replaced by humans controlled by AI(look at the various research for BCIs or for gene therapy that allows for the possibility for you to be controlled by radio frequencies), then they’re very easily replaced.

> gene therapy that allows for the possibility for you to be controlled by radio frequencies

What. Can you cite this research?

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