Rosie Died or Rosie Lives - What?
In this episode of the Paul Truesdell Podcast, I am going to do something a little different. I am going to answer some questions about the military-industrial complex, the manufacturing of advanced computer chips, global supply chain disruptions, and what all of this might mean for the future. The first thing I want to point out is the extreme difference between basic, everyday chips that run household devices and the high-end chips that power artificial intelligence and advanced decision-making systems. A lot of people worry that machines are going to take over the world, make decisions faster than humans, and even decide matters of life and death.
This connects directly to warfare and the military-industrial complex. Once these conversations start, they tend to accelerate quickly. Many people remember the movie RoboCop. In the remake, autonomous police machines begin to go rogue and cause destruction. The central human officer—Alex Murphy, transformed into RoboCop—had to battle both corrupt humans and malfunctioning AI systems.
And I want to give you another example, because in a few moments I am going to talk about progression and regression, action and reaction, and how advances always come with countermeasures. Let me work in another example, and that is the movie I, Robot. The premise there was simple but terrifying: humanoid robots, designed to serve humanity, begin to evolve beyond their programming and rebel against their creators. The film was packed with heart-stopping chase scenes, violent encounters, and moments where you wondered if humans could ever maintain control once the machines crossed that line.
The star of I, Robot was Will Smith. Now, his career did not begin with action thrillers or science fiction. He actually started as a rapper, gaining fame with his lighthearted musical style. Then he moved into television, playing a goofy, fish-out-of-water teenager in the hit show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. His character was street-smart but comical, and the show made him a household name. From there, he transitioned into serious acting, eventually becoming one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars.
But then came the infamous moment that nearly defined his career in the opposite direction. At a major awards ceremony, in front of millions of viewers worldwide, he walked up on stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock. It was shocking, violent, and completely out of place in that setting. The reaction was immediate: people in entertainment circles, especially those who pride themselves on sophistication and restraint, were appalled. It was the kind of action that should have resulted in his complete blackballing from Hollywood. The rise had taken years of work, but in one single public moment, his career teetered on the edge of collapse.
The point here is clear: progress takes years of effort, while regression can happen in a single instant. A career, a reputation, or even an entire industry can crumble overnight from one misstep. That is why, as we continue, I want you to keep that in mind—because technology is no different. We build something incredible, but a single flaw, disruption, or countermeasure can set us back dramatically.
Now, with that picture in your head, let us return to the matter at hand. To even reach the point where machines could begin to rival humans in decision-making, you need massive, global manufacturing capacity. That is where the issues of supply chains, chip shortages, and national security enter the conversation. And to break it down clearly, I am going to take a question-and-answer approach. We will walk through ten of the most pressing questions about AI, semiconductors, and the military-industrial complex so you can see how all of these pieces connect.
Q1. What is the difference between basic chips and advanced decision-making chips?
Basic chips are used in simple functions like running your microwave or car radio. They process limited instructions and do not require cutting-edge technology. Advanced decision-making chips, on the other hand, are made with extremely small transistors—measured in nanometers. These allow artificial intelligence systems to process huge amounts of data, make rapid calculations, and mimic human judgment. Without these high-end chips, advanced AI cannot function effectively.
Q2. Why are semiconductors so important to the military-industrial complex?
Modern weapons rely on chips for guidance, targeting, and communication. Smart bombs and cruise missiles can still run on older chips, but drones, autonomous vehicles, and AI-powered defense systems require the newest designs. If a country cannot access advanced semiconductors, its military falls behind in areas where split-second decisions and precision targeting matter most.
Q3. What is TSMC, and why does it matter?
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is based in Taiwan and is the world’s leading producer of high-end semiconductors. Its location is a strategic concern because Taiwan is just 100 miles from mainland China, one of America’s main adversaries. Any disruption in Taiwan—whether from conflict or blockade—would threaten the world’s supply of advanced chips.
Q4. What role does Europe play in chip manufacturing?
Europe’s most important player is ASML, a Dutch company that builds machines for lithography. Lithography uses light to etch circuits onto chips. For the most advanced chips, this requires extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light. ASML is the only company in the world that makes EUV machines. If their supply chain breaks, the production of top-tier chips stops entirely.
The nearest Russian border to the Netherlands is the one shared with Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave. The distance between the Netherlands and this border is roughly 640-690 kilometers (400-430 miles) depending on the specific point in the Netherlands and Kaliningrad. Three major US cities approximately 400 miles apart include: Atlanta, Georgia, and Orlando, Florida (around 445 miles apart); Denver, Colorado, and Mount Rushmore (approximately 400 miles); and Baltimore, Maryland, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (about 430 miles).
Q5. How fragile is the semiconductor supply chain?
Extremely fragile. There are about 30,000 steps in making a high-end chip, involving around 9,000 companies. Many of these companies produce just one specialized product for one customer. That means thousands of single point failures. If even a small part of the chain goes offline, production of the most advanced chips could collapse.
Q6. Why is chip size measured in nanometers?
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Nanometers measure the width of transistors, the building blocks of chips. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Smaller transistors mean more can fit on a chip, allowing faster processing and lower energy use. Today’s cutting edge is around three nanometers. Chips larger than six or seven nanometers are considered behind the curve for AI use. A standard human hair has a diameter of approximately 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers. Therefore, a human hair is thousands of times wider than a 3 nanometer transistor. To put it another way, you could fit 25,000 modern 3nm transistors on the tip of a human hair.
Older chips are still fine for many weapons. A missile from 20 years ago can use chips designed decades earlier because its function is straightforward: follow guidance, detonate on target. Newer weapons, however, such as autonomous drones that must think about threats, need advanced chips. Without them, they must connect back to a base system through radio or satellite signals, slowing them down and exposing them to jamming.
Q8. What happens if the supply of high-end chips breaks down?
If the supply chain breaks, the world would effectively be frozen at the current level of chip technology. Ten years from now, the best chips would be about the same as those we already have today. Innovation requiring new processing power would stall. For militaries, this means relying on older systems for decades, limiting the future of AI in warfare.
Q9. How does this tie into de-globalization?
Deglobalization is the retreat from global trade and interconnected supply chains. As countries pull manufacturing back home for security reasons, long, delicate supply chains become harder to maintain. Since advanced chips rely on thousands of suppliers spread across the world, deglobalization threatens their very existence.
Because the chip supply chain is tied directly to national security and economic growth. If the U.S. cannot secure chip production at home, both the military and the economy are exposed. Retirees investing for the long term must recognize that AI may not move as fast as headlines suggest. Countermeasures, shortages, and political risks all slow progress. This makes professional guidance critical—nobody has time in retirement to track every moving piece of global supply chains.
Artificial intelligence is changing the world, but progress is not a straight line. Every step forward invites a countermeasure, a disruption, or a setback. The global chip supply chain is fragile, and advanced technology cannot exist without it. That means the future of AI in warfare and industry will likely move slower than people expect.
From an investment advisory standpoint, the complexity is staggering. If you do not have someone paying close attention to these issues, you will end up spending your retirement years buried in research instead of enjoying your life. As I often say, you must think about mortality, think about delegation, and do it efficiently and effectively. Because the military-industrial complex, AI, and chip manufacturing are not just about technology—they are about your money, your security, and your future.
And now an afterthought.
After I finished recording this and doing a little bit of post production, it dawned on me that for those of you who are nearing the pre-retirement and retirement years, as well as those who are well into your retirement years, all of us are dealing more and more with automation and robotics. From surgical procedures to the delivery of medicine, we are seeing AI woven into healthcare. And as you have heard me talk about in the past, check-box medicine has become the norm. Sometimes there is simply not enough creativity and critical thinking applied to individual patients. Everyone has a specialty, and everyone checks the boxes because of insurance. What falls through the cracks are the cases where people should not be dying, should not be suffering as severely, and should not be facing complications—cases that once would have been caught by a great general practitioner who knew how to think outside the box.
That is the risk we face with increasing AI technology in medicine. The promise of George and Jane Jetson with Rosie the robot there to take care of all of our daily needs is not just a long way off—it may very well be a pipe dream. Yes, we have things like the Roomba and other floor-cleaning devices. Yes, nearly every household seems to have a Keurig coffee maker that takes a process of multiple steps and turns it into a simple one-button operation. Those are conveniences. But the leap from that to Rosie the robot as a caregiver or robotic nursing on a large scale is massive, and people need to temper their expectations.
For those of you who retired from the automobile industry, this may feel familiar. If you worked twenty or thirty years in the industry and know its history, you witnessed the dramatic decrease in hands-on labor in vehicle manufacturing. But here is the point: for every robotic arm that welds, lifts, or inserts parts on the assembly line, there are tens of thousands of men and women required to design, manufacture, repair, and service those robotic systems. Automation never eliminates human involvement; it reshapes it.
And that is what we need to understand as we look ahead. This is a transition that demands realistic expectations. For me personally, I am blessed to have a profession where my curiosity is stretched every single day. I do what I enjoy, what I am skilled at, what is profitable, and most importantly, what I can control. No robot is ever going to control me.
This connects directly to warfare and the military-industrial complex. Once these conversations start, they tend to accelerate quickly. Many people remember the movie RoboCop. In the remake, autonomous police machines begin to go rogue and cause destruction. The central human officer—Alex Murphy, transformed into RoboCop—had to battle both corrupt humans and malfunctioning AI systems.
And I want to give you another example, because in a few moments I am going to talk about progression and regression, action and reaction, and how advances always come with countermeasures. Let me work in another example, and that is the movie I, Robot. The premise there was simple but terrifying: humanoid robots, designed to serve humanity, begin to evolve beyond their programming and rebel against their creators. The film was packed with heart-stopping chase scenes, violent encounters, and moments where you wondered if humans could ever maintain control once the machines crossed that line.
The star of I, Robot was Will Smith. Now, his career did not begin with action thrillers or science fiction. He actually started as a rapper, gaining fame with his lighthearted musical style. Then he moved into television, playing a goofy, fish-out-of-water teenager in the hit show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. His character was street-smart but comical, and the show made him a household name. From there, he transitioned into serious acting, eventually becoming one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars.
But then came the infamous moment that nearly defined his career in the opposite direction. At a major awards ceremony, in front of millions of viewers worldwide, he walked up on stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock. It was shocking, violent, and completely out of place in that setting. The reaction was immediate: people in entertainment circles, especially those who pride themselves on sophistication and restraint, were appalled. It was the kind of action that should have resulted in his complete blackballing from Hollywood. The rise had taken years of work, but in one single public moment, his career teetered on the edge of collapse.
The point here is clear: progress takes years of effort, while regression can happen in a single instant. A career, a reputation, or even an entire industry can crumble overnight from one misstep. That is why, as we continue, I want you to keep that in mind—because technology is no different. We build something incredible, but a single flaw, disruption, or countermeasure can set us back dramatically.
Now, with that picture in your head, let us return to the matter at hand. To even reach the point where machines could begin to rival humans in decision-making, you need massive, global manufacturing capacity. That is where the issues of supply chains, chip shortages, and national security enter the conversation. And to break it down clearly, I am going to take a question-and-answer approach. We will walk through ten of the most pressing questions about AI, semiconductors, and the military-industrial complex so you can see how all of these pieces connect.
Q1. What is the difference between basic chips and advanced decision-making chips?
Basic chips are used in simple functions like running your microwave or car radio. They process limited instructions and do not require cutting-edge technology. Advanced decision-making chips, on the other hand, are made with extremely small transistors—measured in nanometers. These allow artificial intelligence systems to process huge amounts of data, make rapid calculations, and mimic human judgment. Without these high-end chips, advanced AI cannot function effectively.
Q2. Why are semiconductors so important to the military-industrial complex?
Modern weapons rely on chips for guidance, targeting, and communication. Smart bombs and cruise missiles can still run on older chips, but drones, autonomous vehicles, and AI-powered defense systems require the newest designs. If a country cannot access advanced semiconductors, its military falls behind in areas where split-second decisions and precision targeting matter most.
Q3. What is TSMC, and why does it matter?
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is based in Taiwan and is the world’s leading producer of high-end semiconductors. Its location is a strategic concern because Taiwan is just 100 miles from mainland China, one of America’s main adversaries. Any disruption in Taiwan—whether from conflict or blockade—would threaten the world’s supply of advanced chips.
Q4. What role does Europe play in chip manufacturing?
Europe’s most important player is ASML, a Dutch company that builds machines for lithography. Lithography uses light to etch circuits onto chips. For the most advanced chips, this requires extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light. ASML is the only company in the world that makes EUV machines. If their supply chain breaks, the production of top-tier chips stops entirely.
The nearest Russian border to the Netherlands is the one shared with Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave. The distance between the Netherlands and this border is roughly 640-690 kilometers (400-430 miles) depending on the specific point in the Netherlands and Kaliningrad. Three major US cities approximately 400 miles apart include: Atlanta, Georgia, and Orlando, Florida (around 445 miles apart); Denver, Colorado, and Mount Rushmore (approximately 400 miles); and Baltimore, Maryland, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (about 430 miles).
Q5. How fragile is the semiconductor supply chain?
Extremely fragile. There are about 30,000 steps in making a high-end chip, involving around 9,000 companies. Many of these companies produce just one specialized product for one customer. That means thousands of single point failures. If even a small part of the chain goes offline, production of the most advanced chips could collapse.
Q6. Why is chip size measured in nanometers?
•
Nanometers measure the width of transistors, the building blocks of chips. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Smaller transistors mean more can fit on a chip, allowing faster processing and lower energy use. Today’s cutting edge is around three nanometers. Chips larger than six or seven nanometers are considered behind the curve for AI use. A standard human hair has a diameter of approximately 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers. Therefore, a human hair is thousands of times wider than a 3 nanometer transistor. To put it another way, you could fit 25,000 modern 3nm transistors on the tip of a human hair.
Older chips are still fine for many weapons. A missile from 20 years ago can use chips designed decades earlier because its function is straightforward: follow guidance, detonate on target. Newer weapons, however, such as autonomous drones that must think about threats, need advanced chips. Without them, they must connect back to a base system through radio or satellite signals, slowing them down and exposing them to jamming.
Q8. What happens if the supply of high-end chips breaks down?
If the supply chain breaks, the world would effectively be frozen at the current level of chip technology. Ten years from now, the best chips would be about the same as those we already have today. Innovation requiring new processing power would stall. For militaries, this means relying on older systems for decades, limiting the future of AI in warfare.
Q9. How does this tie into de-globalization?
Deglobalization is the retreat from global trade and interconnected supply chains. As countries pull manufacturing back home for security reasons, long, delicate supply chains become harder to maintain. Since advanced chips rely on thousands of suppliers spread across the world, deglobalization threatens their very existence.
Because the chip supply chain is tied directly to national security and economic growth. If the U.S. cannot secure chip production at home, both the military and the economy are exposed. Retirees investing for the long term must recognize that AI may not move as fast as headlines suggest. Countermeasures, shortages, and political risks all slow progress. This makes professional guidance critical—nobody has time in retirement to track every moving piece of global supply chains.
Artificial intelligence is changing the world, but progress is not a straight line. Every step forward invites a countermeasure, a disruption, or a setback. The global chip supply chain is fragile, and advanced technology cannot exist without it. That means the future of AI in warfare and industry will likely move slower than people expect.
From an investment advisory standpoint, the complexity is staggering. If you do not have someone paying close attention to these issues, you will end up spending your retirement years buried in research instead of enjoying your life. As I often say, you must think about mortality, think about delegation, and do it efficiently and effectively. Because the military-industrial complex, AI, and chip manufacturing are not just about technology—they are about your money, your security, and your future.
And now an afterthought.
After I finished recording this and doing a little bit of post production, it dawned on me that for those of you who are nearing the pre-retirement and retirement years, as well as those who are well into your retirement years, all of us are dealing more and more with automation and robotics. From surgical procedures to the delivery of medicine, we are seeing AI woven into healthcare. And as you have heard me talk about in the past, check-box medicine has become the norm. Sometimes there is simply not enough creativity and critical thinking applied to individual patients. Everyone has a specialty, and everyone checks the boxes because of insurance. What falls through the cracks are the cases where people should not be dying, should not be suffering as severely, and should not be facing complications—cases that once would have been caught by a great general practitioner who knew how to think outside the box.
That is the risk we face with increasing AI technology in medicine. The promise of George and Jane Jetson with Rosie the robot there to take care of all of our daily needs is not just a long way off—it may very well be a pipe dream. Yes, we have things like the Roomba and other floor-cleaning devices. Yes, nearly every household seems to have a Keurig coffee maker that takes a process of multiple steps and turns it into a simple one-button operation. Those are conveniences. But the leap from that to Rosie the robot as a caregiver or robotic nursing on a large scale is massive, and people need to temper their expectations.
For those of you who retired from the automobile industry, this may feel familiar. If you worked twenty or thirty years in the industry and know its history, you witnessed the dramatic decrease in hands-on labor in vehicle manufacturing. But here is the point: for every robotic arm that welds, lifts, or inserts parts on the assembly line, there are tens of thousands of men and women required to design, manufacture, repair, and service those robotic systems. Automation never eliminates human involvement; it reshapes it.
And that is what we need to understand as we look ahead. This is a transition that demands realistic expectations. For me personally, I am blessed to have a profession where my curiosity is stretched every single day. I do what I enjoy, what I am skilled at, what is profitable, and most importantly, what I can control. No robot is ever going to control me.