In April 2013, Teva Pharmaceuticals, a large generic drug manufacturer, hired a marketing executive with strong connections throughout the industry with the goal of exploring opportunities to increase profits. Or, in that marketing executive’s own words, to enact “price increase implementation.”

Most manufacturers, if they expect to grow and flourish, not only need to expand their existing product line but must also innovate and otherwise add to their product mix, whether that means adding entirely new items or improving the quality of existing goods. In other words, producing the same thing over and over, without any modifications or without branching out into other product lines, is not a typical recipe for long-term success.

If you were thinking about buying a washing machine sometime in 2017, you may have been tempted to wait a little while for prices to fall. After all, prices had been dropping for about five years, so unless your current washer was inoperable, there was little reason to make a purchase in haste.

View US washing machine imports and Korean washing machine part exports by country.

We live in an age of paradox. In a wide variety of industries, artificial intelligence...