Ford reportedly hired human engineers after the artificial intelligence tools failed to tackle quality issues in the production processes. Earlier, the automaker had laid off hundreds of employees to make room for AI, believing the technology could replace human skills and reduce costs in the process. However, the US carmaker hired over 350 “veteran engineers,” including some who previously worked for the company.
Company leaders on human employees:
“Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it,” Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters on a call Wednesday, reported Bloomberg.
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“Over prior years, we didn’t 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.”
Poon further added, “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,” adding, but “we recognized that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals.”
“We had been relying more and more on automated quality systems,” said Kumar Galhotra, chief operating officer, adding that the push has not generated “desired results”. Galhotra explained that the engineers were “at the heart” to turn around Ford’s quality problems.
Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley told Bloomberg TV, “We’re seeing our warranty coverages come down. We’re seeing our recall costs come down.” The exec added, “These are all contributing to literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of a tailwind for Ford on cost.”
About Ford’s earlier AI push:
Ford seized the AI buzz, and in an earnings call last October, Galhotra said the company was deploying “AI across the entire industrial system.” A few months earlier last year, Ford boss Jim Farley, in an interview, said, “AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind.”
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Galhotra had told the investors that Ford had rolled out 900 AI-powered cameras in its plants “to detect quality issues at the source and help us mitigate supply disruptions”. However, Poon recently revealed that AI-backed checks have failed to live up to expectations and deliver reliable results.