Metal fatigue is invisible until it kills you. Microscopic cracks propagate through steel, hidden from human eyes, until catastrophic failure. Detecting these cracks before they matter—that's what keeps military helicopters flying and pilots alive.
Pattern Recognition at Scale
The same skills that spot micro-fractures in metal now spot micro-failures in AI systems. Both require seeing patterns in noise, catching anomalies before they cascade, understanding how small defects become system failures.
In metal, we learned that failure patterns repeat but never identically. Each crack is unique, but families of cracks share characteristics. Eactly how AI models fail - unique expressions of systematic weaknesses.
The equipment was different — strain gauges sensors then, gradient analyzers now - but the mindset is identical. You're hunting for the failure that hasn't happened yet.
This experience taught us that the most dangerous failures are the ones that look like success. The metal that passes every test except the one that matters. The AI that works perfectly until it doesn't.
Whether it's metal or models, the principle remains: anticipate failure, respect complexity, and never trust anything that looks too perfect.