\n<\/p>\n
Name:<\/strong> \u201cGreybeards.\u201d<\/p>\n Age:<\/strong> There\u2019s a clue in the name.<\/p>\n I\u2019m thinking old, and probably male?<\/strong> Most likely. Certainly human, that\u2019s the main thing.<\/p>\n Are ZZ Top back on the road? <\/strong>No \u2026 Actually, yes! But this isn\u2019t about them.<\/p>\n Who is it about then?<\/strong> Veteran engineers, working for Ford Motor Company in the US.<\/p>\n Oh dear, I think I know how this story goes: hundreds of long<\/strong>standing workers get laid off because of automation and artificial intelligence \u2026<\/strong> That kinda was how the story was going; the company has 5,000 fewer workers than it did in 2020. Recently, though, there\u2019s been an unexpected twist.<\/p>\n Ooh, I love those, go on.<\/strong> Over the past three years, the company has hired<\/em> 350 veteran engineers \u2013 known as \u201cgreybeards\u201d (or \u201cgraybeards\u201d if you\u2019re reading this in the US) \u2013 made up of former Ford employees and workers from suppliers.<\/p>\n Excellent news! Why, though? I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s not because \u2013 despite the threat from the massive acceleration going on in the Chinese automotive industry \u2013 Ford has suddenly discovered its charitable side?<\/strong> No. It\u2019s more about doing the things that AI proved to be a bit rubbish at.<\/p>\n AI replaced with human beings, man bites dog! Go on!<\/strong> Not quite replaced. But they discovered that the hundreds of AI-powered cameras they were using, including for design and manufacturing checks, were prone to pitfalls.<\/p>\n Because?<\/strong> To quote Ford\u2019s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, Charles Poon: \u201cArtificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it\u2019s only as good as the information you use to train it.\u201d<\/p>\n Hmm, now who would have that kind of know<\/strong>how and experience, I wonder?<\/strong> \u201cOver prior years, we didn\u2019t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles,\u201d Poon said.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/strong>Who<\/strong><\/em> have been with us through many product cycles\u201d, Mr Poon<\/strong> \u2013 they\u2019re people, remember.<\/strong> True. With facial hair to prove it.<\/p>\n So the AI gets chucked on the scrapheap<\/strong> and the \u201cgreybeards\u201d come back through the factory gates, singing, like elves \u2026<\/strong> In the fairytale version maybe.<\/p>\n And in the real version?<\/strong> A combination of the two. Ford said that AI is very important to quality gains, \u201cand that, in tandem with deep technical expertise, is what\u2019s needed\u201d.<\/p>\n Yeah, until all that expertise has been successfully transferred to the machines. And the human becomes redundant. <\/strong>Not just from work, but existentially. Argggghhh!<\/p>\n Do say:<\/strong> \u201cPssst! Yes, you, comrade greybeard. Let\u2019s teach this one wrong, introduce a few glitches, so there may even be a few jobs left for our kids \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t say:<\/strong> \u201cWait, who are these cars of the future even for? Our robot overlords?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Name: \u201cGreybeards.\u201d Age: There\u2019s a clue in the name. I\u2019m thinking old, and probably male? Most likely. Certainly human, that\u2019s the main thing. Are ZZ Top back on the road? No \u2026 Actually, yes! But this isn\u2019t about them. Who is it about then? Veteran engineers, working for Ford Motor Company in the US. Oh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1564,21562,10702,24887,3698,1443,24888,1007],"class_list":{"0":"post-50803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-artificial","9":"tag-backfired","10":"tag-ford","11":"tag-greybeards","12":"tag-humans","13":"tag-intelligence","14":"tag-rehire","15":"tag-return"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}