Part of the problem is the “physics” of prompting changes with the models. At the prompt level, is it Even Possible to engineer when the laws of the universe aren’t even stable.

Engineering of the model architecture, sure. You can mathematically model it.

Prompts? Perhaps never possible.

It changes with any different flavor of a technology in any field of engineering, at least at the level of abstraction that you’re choosing to engage with the problem. Otherwise, this is just machine learning. It yields to the same conceptual approaches in quality control that require fundamental understanding of the underlying fields of study as any area of implementing technology—pretty much the definition of engineering.