When Ford's Robots Got It Wrong, Humans Got the Call
Ford just hit number one in JD Power quality for the first time since 2010. The twist: it got there by rehiring more than 350 veteran engineers to fix what its automated systems got wrong. Today's post names the failure mode (the Oversight Gap) and gives you a four question framework for where to keep a human on the controls. Read it here: https://www.harvestkernel.com/ford-automation-oversight-gap-ai-literacy/
Good Morning Dean -
I found this article interesting. It was refreshing to read the value humans still have. I've been mulling it around in my head trying to figure out if and/or how I can frame it to my students in a way that highlights there's still a need for human skills and experience underscoring what we tell them about using AI to enhance, not do their work. As we've talked about, they still need to have the knowledge and skill set. Of course it's easy for you and I to say having 40+ years of industry experience combined, prior to AI coming on the scene. What's holding me back is what will be my response if students say something along the lines of "by the time I get 20+ (or whatever number) of experience, AI is going to be so sophisticated, my human skill set won't be as needed."
Curious what your thoughts are.
Gretchen
Gretchen Davidson Gretchen, great question, so let me give you my take...
I think your students are worried about the wrong thing. The question they are asking is "will AI get so good that I am not needed." But that is not really how this plays out. Here is the part nobody likes to say out loud: AI will take jobs. It just does not do the taking by itself. The technology does not walk into an office and let anybody go. People do. And the people doing it are the ones who learned to orchestrate it.
Think about what that actually means. One person who knows how to direct AI, read its output, and catch it when it is confidently wrong ends up doing the work of three who never bothered to learn. The machine is just the tool in that person's hands. It is not the robot replacing them. It is the coworker who picked up the new skill.
That is the whole Ford story, really. The robots did not rescue that quality score. The 350 veterans who knew how to run the line did. They were the orchestrators, and the company could not get there without them.
So I would flip it for your students. The warning is not "AI is coming for you." It is "the person who learns to run AI is coming for you, so make sure that person is you." Their twenty years is not a countdown to being obsolete. It is exactly what earns them the seat at the controls instead of being the one automated around.
Let's not ask whether the machine will be good enough to replace you. Just decide to be the one running it. That seat does not disappear. It gets more powerful every year the tech gets better.
You are already teaching them the right thing, Gretchen. Keep planting the seeds!
Dean