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Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

bloomberg.com

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Re: Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

#71

Post by foxyv »

Legend2440 wrote: post #35
Sanzig wrote: post #27

Setting aside how shortsighted it is to fire your employees to replace them with AI, Ford also screwed up by firing the wrong employees. LLMs work best in the hands of experienced senior engineers who can work at a high level of abstraction because they already understand all the pieces underneath. In a sense, using an LLM agent is like providing instructions to a very smart, very quick junior who despite being brill…

Who says Ford fired any employees? The article doesn't.

I think most of them were losses by attrition. Where they don't replace lost employees. That's usually the preferred method of downsizing if you can get away with it.

Re: Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

#73

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

thewebguyd wrote: post #49
gm678 wrote: post #20

> Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product. Clearly a lot of careful thought went into their strategy of using AI and firing engineers.

This idea is everywhere right now, that AI is some magic black box that will solve all your business problems. The sentiment is spreading through the exec team where I work now too. It's like a disease. C-suites completely disconnected from reality and assuming we've already achieved ASI/AGI, and marketing teams & business journals are only furthering that narrative. It's so weird. I don't know what it is about AI th…

> It's so weird. I don't know what it is about AI that causes people to throw all thought and caution to the wind and charge forward blind. Its like they've been chomping at the bit for decades to get rid of those pesky humans and are so hyped up over it they can't see clearly anymore.

It's just a hype cycle. In my 15 years in data, I've seen around 3-4. Every time leadership get way too invested in the possibilities, and they waste tons of money on doomed efforts. A good example of the prior one was "Big Data" which was even more pointless than the current AI boom.

Don't get me wrong, there is valuable tech there (at the very least, being able to reliably generate structured data from unstructured input is incredibly valuable in data), but the current hype is way off the charts.

Re: Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

#74

Post by eunos »

khriss wrote: post #57

Interestingly, there were no consequences for the execs that made this 'mistake'. There seems to be almost unlimited cover for execs cargo culting on using AI as a pretext for layoffs. If it doesn't implode almost immediately, they get massive bonuses, if it blows up in their face, oh well they had the courage to 'take a bold strategic decision' In other words, they don't really have a plan, but they are happy playin…

The social contract that American society elect (including these non executive engineers) emphasize career flexibility (right-to-work) and returns of capital than job security. Especially during booming economic years.

Re: Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

#75

Post by Tade0 »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #19
Tade0 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the crux of the issue is that there's no guarantee that the company would not find a different, equally harebrained, reason to lay GP off.

There's no guarantee in any job that you won't be laid off.

True, but if you already know that a given company tends to fire on a whim, you'd be excused to feel a little bit distrustful.

Re: Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

#76

Post by jeffffff »

arjie wrote: post #26

How interesting. So a Ford car is now more reliable than a Toyota soon after purchase but Toyota didn’t fire anyone and Ford fired, implemented automated reviews, and rehired. So their process didn’t bring them back to neutral. It placed them above the traditionally reliable manufacturers. So maybe the key is firing everyone and then rehiring the good guys after you implement automated systems. Though I’m somewhat su…

porsche is part of volkswagen, so it's not that surprising that they're decently reliable. i probably see 10 porsches for every ferrari, lamborghini, etc that i see, and i think a large part of that is reliability - even absurdly rich people don't want to deal with an unreliable car when there is a more reliable alternative.

Re: Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

#77

Post by cactacea »

SoftTalker wrote: post #42
nosioptar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had a couple of Taurusii back in the day. 100% ended up having a problem where the power steering pump shit the bed because a plastic piece in the pressurized side failed. Paid to repair one, oem pump broke on drive home due to same plastic piece under pressure. My point being, Ford's had shit for brains for decades. Its a fucking wonder any of their vehicles make it out of the parking lot.

I had a Focus in the 2000's that was the most reliable car I ever owned. Rust got it eventually but it still started instantly at any temperature and ran like a new car.

It was also designed by European engineers, not in Michigan. Not saying that's the reason the Focus is more reliable than a Taurus but they didn't follow the "typical" Ford design process at the time for that vehicle. For what it is worth I owned a 1992 Taurus and it left me stranded more times than I can count. Just some of the issues I had were a water pump that exploded and a seized A/C compressor.

Re: Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

#78

Post by vrganj »

thewebguyd wrote: post #49
gm678 wrote: post #20

> Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product. Clearly a lot of careful thought went into their strategy of using AI and firing engineers.

This idea is everywhere right now, that AI is some magic black box that will solve all your business problems. The sentiment is spreading through the exec team where I work now too. It's like a disease. C-suites completely disconnected from reality and assuming we've already achieved ASI/AGI, and marketing teams & business journals are only furthering that narrative. It's so weird. I don't know what it is about AI th…

Its ideology.

> Its like they've been chomping at the bit for decades to get rid of those pesky humans and are so hyped up over it they can't see clearly anymore.

This is precisely it. Here's my analysis:

AGI is a savior figure for the capitalist class. A tech version of the Second Coming, delivering them from the pesky demands of workers, like a living wage or (gasp!) sick leave.

That's why they're all so obsessed with it, it has religious-ideological component to them. When you hear them talk about AGI, there's always this weird eschatological vibe with it.

Unfortunately, they're blinded by their beliefs and can't think things through even one step further. Even if their cyberjesus comes down to them through the machine and replaces all workers, who's gonna buy all their stuff then?

All they're doing in their capitalist zealotry is ringing in the end of capitalism.

Re: Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

#79

Post by zamalek »

jayd16 wrote: post #45
gm678 wrote: post #20

> Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product. Clearly a lot of careful thought went into their strategy of using AI and firing engineers.

Step 1: fire everyone. Step 2: figure out how to use AI. In that order, apparently.

Alternatively:

Step 1: 30 minute conversation with AI on how to use AI. Step 2: fire everyone.

Re: Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors

#80

Post by [deleted] »

jayd16 wrote: post #45
gm678 wrote: post #20

> Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product. Clearly a lot of careful thought went into their strategy of using AI and firing engineers.

Step 1: fire everyone. Step 2: figure out how to use AI. In that order, apparently.

[deleted]
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