The fascination with "software factories" is strange. We don't have "bridge factories" or "skyscraper factories." We engineer those for the specific requirements from each individual project.

I think it's rooted in the idea that AI is going to "solve" software engineering when it's really only another tool that magnifies leverage. Same thing with traditional engineering and their computer-assisted tools. It doesn't "solve" engineering, but it does automate some of the repetitive things that aren't the biggest value-add.

Software isn't a manufactured product and that's where the disconnect is. You can't build software factories unless you don't care about the quality. For some companies, that might be fine, but I imagine that's a much smaller subset of the market than folks think.