> Does anyone solder their own microchips at scale anymore?

That comparison doesn't work because up until now, it was only the execution we automated or optimised. Now, we're trying to outsource the understanding itself. No one hand-crafts a microchip, but we know how they're put together. We can debug and improve the process. The suggestion now is to just trust the magical statistics machine and not care that the artifacts become unfixable and unreproducible if and when the magical machine fails.