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

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

#91

Post by drob518 »

yifanl wrote: post #70
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…

If they gave the engineers appropriate severance packages, then they're at least out that much as a stupidity tax, but that's probably the most we can expect as far as consequences for the exec suite.

There is a huge cost for this either way (severance packages, yes, but also lost productivity, reduced team coherence, etc), but that unfortunately doesn’t necessarily translate to a political cost for the managers involved in pushing the dumb idea, particularly if the CEO was pressuring everyone for cost savings. They will escape by saying, “We did it because everyone else is doing it and we were told it was the right thing. How were we to know that it wouldn’t work?”

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

#93

Post by neilv »

stagger87 wrote: post #18

> The return of the veteran engineers at Ford cuts against the prevailing wisdom — and fear — that AI will replace all kinds of knowledge workers. But Ford found the machines couldn’t replace experience. I'm not sure this story is illustrative of that, when you have a VP of engineering saying “Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers tha…

Pre-AI version: Oops, you laid off the higher-salaried people without having them train their replacements, so bring them back, long enough to do that.

Now, that training[*] will be for both AI models and lower-salaried hires.

Perhaps a second mistake by those who thought they didn't need their most experienced people: Now they think they just need to train the AI better, and then new-grad "AI native" hires will be the most cost-effective way to operate/oversee the AI and do whatever it can't.

[*] edit: originally typed "replacement" when I meant to type "training"

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

#94

Post by exabrial »

For those of us who lived through the "Offshoring" Craze of the mid-2000s, this has the exact same arc.

Corp CEOs / CFOs golf buddies coouldn't stop yapping about how much they saved paying people less by offshoring. So step 1, they fire a bunch of people and send work overseas, driving up their financial metrics for 5-6 quarters until their staff and their organization finally break at stage 2. Turns out cultural and communication barriers are things we haven't really figured out how to communicate across efficiently, and that only a handful of people are truly rockstars at it; others just aren't cut out for it. Stage 3 anyone that is competent to get another job already left, leaving a smoldering shell of company that dies by attrition at stage 5.

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

#95

Post by calgoo »

mikepurvis wrote: post #84
yifanl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they gave the engineers appropriate severance packages, then they're at least out that much as a stupidity tax, but that's probably the most we can expect as far as consequences for the exec suite.

Presumably they're also out the top 10-20% of talent which immediately found jobs elsewhere and would have little interest in returning to Ford to work under such incompetent management.

They could always be hired as contractors at x5 the cost for a fixed contract over 2 years to train the ai.

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

#97

Post by HPsquared »

foxyv wrote: post #67

There are two kinds of knowledge. There is explicit knowledge which can be codified easily in markdown files or a wiki. Then there is tacit knowledge which is mostly encoded in the experience of an organization's individuals. Explicit knowledge is like the tip of a giant institutional knowledge iceberg.

Maybe they could use a distillation process. Have the AI prompt the senior engineers repeatedly (don't do this). Like squeezing the oil from olives!

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

#98

Post by simianwords »

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…

Is there any consequence for execs who don't layoff when they are supposed to? You have to look at the situation symmetrically.

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

#99

Post by jeffbee »

SoftTalker wrote: post #33
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…

The Porsche 911 is pretty reliable, it's basically the same car they've made for over 50 years so they've got it figured out.

This seems like a totally crazy statement. The only common thing that a current and 50-year-old 911 share is that there are six holes in the engine block.

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

#100

Post by tamimio »

> Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it

I would rephrase it as it’s only as good as you know what you are doing. Even if the trained input is good, keeping it to scope and making sure it delivers without workarounds requires a human brain who have the past experience.

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