Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.

[failedlyndonlarouchite@mas.to]

@lufthans @evacide

you all might ask, what is the lesson here ?

Is it that AI is bad ?
no

The lesson is that very highly compensated senior managers at major companies often make really stupid decisions

[unattributed@gotosocial.social]

@evacide Good story overall, but disheartening to read these parts:

…while some workers will also help improve and train the AI systems.

and

The company said it would not abandon its use of AI, but plans to now use it in conjunction with human oversight and experience.

IOW—we're rehiring you to train yourself out of a job…

[kevingranade@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@evacide I feel like this sudden and thoughtless leap to replacing engineers is reflective more of a consistent desire management across many industries has shown for many years to minimize the importance of engineers to the success of their projects. Engineering roles get generalized and simplified, but at the last step before hiring the nuance is suddenly brought back in. Press releases cite "Company IP" and "standards" as "driving innovation" but eliding *who* is doing the innovation. 1/2

[kevingranade@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@evacide Quite simply they can't own engineers so they want to pretend they're commodities that can be swapped out at will, and they've stamped out anyone telling them otherwise for so long that they've convinced themselves it's true. This state of denial has set them up to be incapable of recognizing how much the success of their companies hinges on people being obsessively beholden to quality, not their bottom line. 2/2

[eh__tweet@mastodon.uno]

@happyborg @evacide

= poor management

[jeffzugale@mastodon.art]

@evacide just note if anyone who passed me over in favor of AI art want to hire me back, my rate goes RATHER FAR UP INDEED.

[fourt4@mastodonapp.uk]

@evacide greybeard engineer here <narrows eyes meaningfully at article>

Thanks for sharing this.

[fullywoolly@mastodon.social]

@kmck @evacide only via a golden parachute. They don't care.

[petealexharris@mastodon.scot]

@unattributed @evacide

My rate for training myself out of a job is my usual rate plus the value of the job I'm training myself out of. So the negotiation starts at 2x my pay, and then we talk about working conditions.

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@kmck @evacide

Yeah, we don’t live in that kind of world anymore. Careless people ain’t never gotta take consequences

[unattributed@gotosocial.social]

@petealexharris @evacide You're selling yourself short… My starting rate is 5x the value of the job I'm training my replacement for…

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@AgnesBC @evacide

The generational deficit of AI along with every other imaginable, economic, and financial and social deficit it’s inflicting on us is going to be incredibly bad. I don’t actually know if I have the words to express what I think I’m feeling about this.

What it feels like is that good sensible people the senior engineers need to go off into a corner and bring along a bunch of kids and train to be the core of the people who survive the fallout

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@brad @evacide

Fix or repair daily
And
Fucking old rusty dump

[petealexharris@mastodon.scot]

@unattributed @evacide
Yeah, but bear in mind I'm also not going to bother doing it very well.

[julescelt01@universeodon.com]

@evacide Found On Road Dead...

[dark_stang@kind.social]

@evacide wonder if this is why my mach-e was so bad.

[ricardoharvin@mstdn.social]

@evacide Labor has always been and will always be the component of business that business hates most and works hardest to literally eliminate.

The cost of human labor is the biggest drain on business profits, and what business spends most of its efforts on eliminating, in every way it can imagine, and make legal, or at least weakly enforced.

[leonardof@bertha.social]

@evacide aka the goose is unvalued

[ohmu@social.seattle.wa.us]

@ricardoharvin @evacide
I take issue with one part of this.
I used to think the cost of labor explains corporation behavior. A thing I've learned from the past few years is that it's not true. More than the cost of labor, corporate execute leadership loathes workers having a voice and power to make their own choices. They want total control wherever they can achieve it. They will spend money that far exceeds labor costs for a chance at that.

[thirstybear@agilodon.social]

@feisty_lemming @evacide @matthewskelton They are >< this close to getting it.