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GM just laid off IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills

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Re: GM just laid off IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Punishing a human for making a mistake does not prevent mistakes" This statement suggests you don't believe in some combination of neuroplasticity as a concept or the arrow of time.

Tell the families of the people who died on 737 MAX disasters. "Don't worry - everything's going to be okay! The engineers learned from their mistakes - accountability works, you have nothing to be sad about!" Tell the family of the person killed by a semi truck driver who showed up to work drunk or high: "Don't worry - the driver went to jail! Accountability prevented anything bad from happening!" Accountability alo…

What are you even on about mate? Sure accountability doesn’t prevent all mistakes. Guess what, nothing prevents all mistakes. Accountability can help prevent some mistakes some of the time. It sounds like you’re suggesting getting rid of the concept of accountability because it doesn’t prevent ALL mistakes. Way to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Re: GM just laid off IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>AI can't be held accountable I hear this all the time. Why does it matter? Punishing a human for making a mistake does not prevent mistakes, nor does it undo the harm of the mistake. A human saying "my bad, I messed up" and an AI saying "my bad, I messed up" are equally worthless, in a functional sense.

Punishing humans does, in fact, prevent mistakes. Or rather, the threat of punishment causes people to be careful to avoid mistakes, and that prevents mistakes. Sure, this doesn't work 100% of the time, but it does work and has throughout human history. Meanwhile, there's no equivalent paradigm for LLMs.

Even if you could threaten an LLM with punishment for making mistakes, you might get longer CoTs, but that wouldn't prevent mistakes in LLMs. The lack of accountability isn't the reason that LLMs make mistakes - adding accountability wouldn't change anything.

Re: GM just laid off IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills

#84

> agent development, model engineering, AI-native workflows -- point directly at where large-enterprise demand is heading. I don't understand these words. Does "AI-native workflow" mean vibe coding? I am now seeing a lot of roles asking for "AI-enabled engineers". And I am not sure what that means either. I am sort of afraid to ask because the answer will probably confuse me even more. Maybe it's my understanding of…

AI-ensbled engineers == any engineer without sufficient life experience to inherently tell that delegating huge swathes of implementation to a stochastic parrot is a dangerous and fundamentally unsafe idea. It's spun around "knowing how to use the tools" but somehow the whole part around "knowing when not to use them and refusing to use them in those contexts" is conveniently written out of the definition of AI enabled. I personally sed s_AI/ enabled/ engineers_engineers/ with/ unreasonable/ risk/ tolerance_g.

When the business field turns you into a pariah because you refuse to bow to the uninitiated's desires tends to be my red line for an exit. I will not do reasonably foreseeable net harmful work for an industry that won't take no for an answer. My definition for reasonably foreseeable sets the minimum bar for analysis of consequence at enumerating 3rd and 4th degree consequences minimum.

They don't want engineers. They want Operators for whom thinking isn't in the job description.

Re: GM just laid off IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills

#86

> agent development, model engineering, AI-native workflows -- point directly at where large-enterprise demand is heading. I don't understand these words. Does "AI-native workflow" mean vibe coding? I am now seeing a lot of roles asking for "AI-enabled engineers". And I am not sure what that means either. I am sort of afraid to ask because the answer will probably confuse me even more. Maybe it's my understanding of…

You can just check any of the vacancies on their website to see what they're looking for. Example: AI Agent Engineer ( https://search-careers.gm.com/en/jobs/jr-202606937/ai-agent-... ) > We are seeking an AI Agent Engineer to design, build, and operationalize AI-powered agents that enhance employee productivity and decision-making in a complex enterprise environment. The ideal candidate combines strong AI/ML foundati…

Based on that description, we still have no idea what they are looking for, since it the only meaningful words in the first sentence are "design", "build", and "AI-powered agents". "Operationalize" isn't even a word, and "enhance employee productivity and decision-making" communicates nothing, except maybe that this is tools- or HR-oriented and not product-oriented. "Complex enterprise environment" can be omitted.

I would definitely pass on this job.

Re: GM just laid off IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills

#87
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just check any of the vacancies on their website to see what they're looking for. Example: AI Agent Engineer ( https://search-careers.gm.com/en/jobs/jr-202606937/ai-agent-... ) > We are seeking an AI Agent Engineer to design, build, and operationalize AI-powered agents that enhance employee productivity and decision-making in a complex enterprise environment. The ideal candidate combines strong AI/ML foundati…

Based on that description, we still have no idea what they are looking for, since it the only meaningful words in the first sentence are "design", "build", and "AI-powered agents". "Operationalize" isn't even a word, and "enhance employee productivity and decision-making" communicates nothing, except maybe that this is tools- or HR-oriented and not product-oriented. "Complex enterprise environment" can be omitted. I…

I didn't want to paste all the job requirements from that link here, but fair point.

Re: GM just laid off IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills

#88
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My - admittedly 8 year old - Mitsubishi has atrocious UX. State resets itself at odd times (cruise control disables EV mode, and resets regenerative braking settings, eg.), preferences are forgotten, if I want to listen to the radio I have to cycle through AM before FM every time, the touchscreen is slow to respond, the WiFi password for connecting to the app can only be gotten from a dealer, buttons do different thi…

UX in my Audi Q5 (2024) is terrible. With two phones in the car you never know which one is connected and whose google maps is being currently displayed. And then come the buttons designed with a contempt for a driver. I recently had to change a flat tire which is a story in itself. German engineering is soooo different these days.

I really wish that cars were legislated to have documented APIs/canbus. It would be great to be able to load an app that set my car up the way I like it, instead of having to change a bunch of settings every time I start it (EV mode on above 10% battery, eco mode accelerator mapping, single pedal driving all the way off. Every. Single. Time.)

Re Germans: I’m not sure it’s a new thing. I can remember trying to uninstall a seat in a 90s BMW and wondering how they had managed to make something that could be accomplished with 4 bolts into something so complex.

Re: GM just laid off IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills

#89

Probably should just replace their software engineers too. I don't mean to throw shade, but automotive software is so bad I'd bet my life that Claude could do better. Nevermind that the update cycle seems to be 6-10 months for changes like "You can now reset your radio presets directly from the radio settings menu", while bugs like temperature control resetting to max cool every start-up never get fixed.

I used to have issues, I picked up an AA wireless dongle and adjusted the settings a little bit, and have had a pretty solid experience. YMMV

Re: GM just laid off IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills

#90

Probably should just replace their software engineers too. I don't mean to throw shade, but automotive software is so bad I'd bet my life that Claude could do better. Nevermind that the update cycle seems to be 6-10 months for changes like "You can now reset your radio presets directly from the radio settings menu", while bugs like temperature control resetting to max cool every start-up never get fixed.

>automotive software is so bad I'd bet my life that Claude could do better

and they are!

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