Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
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This is a very useful article to have & is helpful in my current LLM-gen-AI work. Thank you very much for sharing it, as I'd surely have missed it otherwise.
Meta: it seems to me “greybeard” is an inappropriately gendered term. I don't see that term used in the article you linked to, and I note you put it in quotes, maybe to acknowledge that, but couldn't another term be used that doesn't refer to something usually identified gender attributes.
Veteran might be a good term here.
@bkuhn It's right there in the second paragraph:
The US automaker hired over 350 veteran engineers, referred to internally as “gray beards”, over the past three years in order to address mistakes made by automated systems.
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Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
"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."
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
@evacide You have many followers, please help me share my pinned post. I need to buy the medication.
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Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
"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."
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
@evacide I read that as Ford spent 3 years moving to AI quality control in effort to return to the craptastic qualify of the 1970s US automotive industry
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Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
"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."
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
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Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
"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."
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
@evacide Sadly they are rehiring only the senior engineers because they are betting after just a couple more years and just a bit more training, they won't need any engineers. They don't need to invest in the next generation of "grey beards".
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Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
"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."
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
@evacide I hope they had to pay a premium to lure them back...
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@evacide they thought that because the snake-oil salesmen told them so. At least they're figuring it out now.
Isn't one the reason why executive "merit" the big bucks is that they aren't so easily fooled by snake-oil peddlers?
"Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie, another to listen."
-Homer Simpson -
@evacide I read that as Ford spent 3 years moving to AI quality control in effort to return to the craptastic qualify of the 1970s US automotive industry
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Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
"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."
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
@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…
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Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
"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."
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
@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
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@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
@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
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= poor management
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Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
"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."
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
@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.
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Ford rehires "greybeard" engineers after its push for AI automation backfires.
"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."
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/ford-ai-automation-human-workers-b3003787.html
@evacide greybeard engineer here <narrows eyes meaningfully at article>
Thanks for sharing this.
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@evacide Sad that some execs will lose their jobs over this colossal error. Surely?
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@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…
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.
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@evacide Sad that some execs will lose their jobs over this colossal error. Surely?
Yeah, we don’t live in that kind of world anymore. Careless people ain’t never gotta take consequences
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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.
@petealexharris @evacide You're selling yourself short… My starting rate is 5x the value of the job I'm training my replacement for…
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@evacide Sadly they are rehiring only the senior engineers because they are betting after just a couple more years and just a bit more training, they won't need any engineers. They don't need to invest in the next generation of "grey beards".
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
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@evacide Wankers. That's Ford though - Found On Rubbish Dumps. They've always been shit.
