AI flops for Ford as it brings back over 300 human experts

Ford has hired over 300 quality inspectors after realising that Artificial Intelligence is not the answer to all its questions. A Bloomberg report states that the US automaker has brought back human engineers after AI failed to match their skills and experience. "Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it," Charles Poon, vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters. The company, just like many others, hopped onto the AI bandwagon, deploying it across some of its operations, including quality checks. However, it has now realised that it fails miserably when pitted against its most experienced engineers.

"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," Poon said. Companies all over the world are moving towards AI-first organisations, but many have admitted that human knowledge is irreplaceable. Ford boss Jim Farley said in an interview last year, "AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind." Turns out, quality checks aren't one of them.

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In October, chief operating officer Kumar Galhotra said that Ford is rolling out 900 AI-powered cameras in its plants "to detect quality issues at the source and help us mitigate supply disruptions". But Poon has admitted that AI-led checks are not delivering the desired results.

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"Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that would produce a high-quality product," he said. Galhotra added that Ford is moving away from its quality control approach, where problems were identified after they reached the factory floor. The technical specialists now help identify quality issues before production begins.

Technical experts will train AI systems at Ford

Poon reportedly said that since the veteran engineers left the company before AI could learn from their years of experience, it is lacking their expertise. Human workers who have now been brought back are training the systems and other workers. Ford has realised that it is important to enhance automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence tools, and human knowledge is the only way to make it happen.

The company said in a press statement that to top the index, it made a "significant talent refresh", including replacing senior leaders across engineering, supply chain and manufacturing, and hiring roughly 300 veteran engineers.