Oops: Ford rehires more than 300 veteran engineers after replacing them with AI

Regardless of your stance on artificial intelligence, it seems to be the buzzword for the latter half of the decade. We know that the automotive industry is now utilizing it to help reduce costs and speed up development, but it seems that it’s not always the case, as Ford learned the hard way, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The American automaker has utilized artificial intelligence to help cut costs and boost productivity, also utilizing it in some aspects of quality control, with more than 900 AI-powered cameras to help detect these issues.

However, more quality control problems ended up arising, where the executives admitted that artificial intelligence simply wasn’t enough, with these automated tools lacking the training and expertise that veteran human employees simply didn’t have. The solution? Ford ended up rehiring more than 300 “veteran” engineers.

Since then, this has resulted in Ford going back to the top of the US J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, something that Ford hasn’t held since 2010. This was also a result of a “significant talent refresh”, where two-thirds of the senior positions across engineering, supply chains, and manufacturing.

These veteran engineers now essentially audit and act as quality control inspectors to complement the artificial intelligence tools, and to also mentor younger employees and engineers.

And this is true, as Ford’s Vice President of Vehicle Hardware Engineering, Charles Poon, said, “Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it. Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers who have been with us through many product cycles.”

This just goes to show that you simply cannot replace raw talent with artificial intelligence, and sometimes, taking shortcuts can lead to massive repercussions.

^{Photos from Ford}