‘We didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers,’ says automaker

No. You wanted to replace engineers who costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year with a glorified chatbot because it cost less (for the introductory period only) and now you're trying to save face because it blew up in your faces.

The important bits:

The staff will lead quality reviews after the automation issues cost the company billions of dollars - while some workers will also help improve and train the AI systems.

“We brought back technical specialists and they hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor.”

After rehiring experienced engineers, Ford experienced a marked improvement in its quality standards.

“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.

Basically saying that they massively underpaid and undervalued their staff, took and are still taking a hit that's costing them BILLIONS and rehired the staff to train their ai so that they can do it again.

I hope the staff that were rehired asked and received a massive pay increase, inline with what it would be costing ford still, if they didn't.

There is no justice in this. Mass layoffs with selective re-hiring was the plan all along. If AI wasn't the excuse, "the economy" would be and it would look the same.

Disrupt the lives of hundreds or thousands of people, indiscriminately. Then bet on being able to get enough of them to come back on weaker terms, weaker contracts, and with reset seniority.

Lots of bad headlines for Ford this year. This one comes after they admitted publicly that if Chinese cars were allowed in American markets they wouldn't be able to compete. (Compete in this context really means: "Couldn't price gouge".)

Ford hired AI

You don't hire A.I. any more than you hire computers or equipment. They implemented AI, or used AI, or any other term referring to a thing and not a person.

All the US automakers are the same. They went through this in the mid 2000s too. Back then it was cutting engineering staff to save profits and outsourcing.

Until that decision showed in Part Quality and they got downgraded by JD power and other industry measures. Then management tried save it by putting together teams to rebuild skills and consumer confidence.

One big issue was interior plastic panels with visible/touchable sharp split lines with flash. Picture shitty army men miniatures.

My niece cut her calf open on a razor sharp flash edge of a dodge map pocket. That's how bad it had gotten.

One visit I went to the GM tech center to consult on some better part options, the office had about 150 cubicals and there were like 3 people working there. Outsourcing killed a ton of legacy knowledge with the layoffs.

Hired back for the short term, I hope they realize…

Those who think AI is like steam engine of new industrial revolution are both right and wrong. What they forget is that steam engine invented back in ancient Greece, and it didn't spark industrial revolution until victorian times.

Those who push AI now will flop badly, because we still lack both necessary ingredients and necessary conditions for next economic revolution.

TL;DR: Don't buy a Ford.

Brought to you by the same people who forgot they are a car company and stopped making cars.

Thousands who will NOT be rehired because of your oopsie - People with families with completely disrupted lives, you visionless, incompetent fucks.

Ford has always been a shitty company.

I'm hoping / not hoping my previous employer does this.

Letting everyone go has been a disaster, but at the same time, I'm not sure I want to go back.

You can at least sack somebody if they mess something up really bad, but you can't even do that with AI as they're just glorified autocompletes, and you were just too stupid to understand that.

Give it a couple years and the fuel pump will go out

Good replace garbage bad companies with new unionized private ones. Same for existing bad companies by unionizing the whole company stealthily

No more stock ones, no more 1 person breaking down other peoples decades of effort/work, no more enshittification, or rat-like behavior. No more bowing to "elites" or anything else

Sorry we fired you and replaced you with AI. Please fix this and help train our AI......

People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.