Ford deleted all of its social content across some of its accounts yesterday, and many were wondering what that meant. The answer is a little boring on the surface. It’s Ford’s first new global ad campaign in more than a decade, replacing the anonymous and meaningless “Go Further” with a tagline that, at the very least, has the name of the company inside of it.
But what’s interesting about the “Ready, Set, Ford” global campaign to me isn’t the aesthetic. I’m fascinated by the strategy behind it, which seems to be rooted in fear and uncertainty. Specifically, it’s at least partially inspired by the uncertainty around artificial intelligence.
This is important! Volkswagen is spending a billion dollars, for instance, in hopes of saving months of development time for new vehicles. If it’s successful, that could save the company many billions. For Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), the prospect of AI could make your car more like “connected devices” than static machines.
According to the new-old-new CEO of Volvo, all of this is not just important, it’s existential. I’d say everything feels existential now. It sucks! I’m going to do The Morning Dump in reverse this morning, with the lead story at the bottom.
Ready, Seat, TMD!
‘AI Is Our Key To Greater Speed, Quality, And Competitiveness’ Says VW Group Board Member
One of my favorite films is the Billy Wilder-directed dark comedy The Apartment from 1960. It’s also probably one of the most overlooked films of the 21st century, lacking the awareness of Wilder’s other projects like Sunset Boulevard or Some Like It Hot.
Go watch it tonight.
I mention The Apartment because there’s a scene early on in the film that I think about all the time. It shows Jack Lemmon as an insurance clerk for the fictional Consolidated Life Insurance Company of New York. What strikes me here is that none of the people on this massive office floor (pictured above) represent a job that exists anymore. Take this huge scene of people, and leave two, and that’s what the present is.
Most of these jobs were replaced by computers, and not even particularly smart ones. Microsoft Office knocked out at least 75% of them, and most of that was probably Excel. That’s to say nothing of the people in the mailroom killed by Outlook.
This made Microsoft an extremely valuable company until Google made all of that stuff essentially free. This is the price of progress, and in economic terms, these represent huge gains in productivity. Filling in a bunch of spreadsheets by hand and typing them up is inefficient and not a particularly rewarding job.
Volkswagen started its slow march towards engineering prowess and capability around the same time that The Apartment was in theaters, but it was an approach built on hiring a ton of engineers. It wasn’t fast, and it was labor-intensive. As a company, VW is on its back foot. It needs to do something to catch up.
The plan, according to Volkswagen, is to leverage AI to make developing cars faster:
“With artificial intelligence, we are igniting the next stage on our path to becoming the global automotive tech driver”, says Hauke Stars, Member of the Board of Management for IT at the Volkswagen Group. “AI is our key to greater speed, quality, and competitiveness – across the entire value chain, from vehicle development to production. Our ambition is to accelerate our development of attractive, innovative vehicles and bring them to our customers faster than ever before. To achieve this, we deploy AI with purpose: scalable, responsible, and with clear industrial benefits. Our ambition: No process without AI.”
The company claims that it’s using 1,200 AI applications already, and that the more than $1 billion it’s spending now will save it about $4-5 billion by 2035. In particular, the company thinks it’ll speed up the process of designing and building cars:
In vehicle development, for example, the Volkswagen Group is building an AI-powered engineering environment together with its partner Dassault Systèmes – for all Group brands and across all regions. It is designed to support engineers through virtual testing and component simulations, significantly accelerating development processes. Alongside other initiatives, this collaboration aims to helping to shorten the product development cycle for Group brands to 36 months – or less – making it at least 25 percent (around 12 months) faster compared to today.
AI integration is also advancing in production: Leveraging the Volkswagen Group’s proprietary Digital Production Platform (DPP) – a “factory cloud” now connecting more than 40 sites – Volkswagen is continuously introducing new AI applications into its manufacturing processes. These help optimize the interaction of complex processes in vehicle assembly, contribute to more efficient use of energy and materials, reduce costs, and lower CO₂ emissions.
I have to be that guy and point out that Volkswagen tried to do this with software, creating a company initially called Car.Software, which became Cariad, which became such a failure that Volkswagen had to promise Rivian about $5 billion to help solve the problem it created for itself.
There’s the money you save by making the building of cars faster, but AI also has a role to play in the cars once built, at least according to the people who are supposed to know better.
Do People Think Of Cars As ‘Static Machines’?
There’s an S&P Global Mobility report out about the future of SDVs, and a lot of that has to do with developing a common software platform (as Rivian and Tesla have done) in order to run a vehicle, as opposed to trying to cobble together a bunch of systems from various suppliers.
AI, according to this report, has a role to play on the consumer level and not just the production level:
Christoph Grote explained how BMW is embedding intelligent lighting systems that respond to conditions in real time and digital key technology that lets drivers use smartphones instead of traditional fobs. These features show how AI makes vehicles more context-aware, enhancing both safety and personalization.
Furthermore, AI can analyze vast amounts of data from vehicle sensors to improve predictive maintenance, ensuring that vehicles are serviced before issues arise.
By weaving AI into SDV architecture, vehicles can stay updated and responsive for years after purchase, helping them feel less like static machines and more like connected devices that learn and adapt to the owner.
That static machine line is interesting. Obviously, cars move, and are not static in that sense. But they have historically been stuck in place technologically. Your car stops becoming more advanced the day it rolls out of the factory. With OTA updates and a more SDV approach, that may not be as true anymore.
Volvo CEO: ‘Some Companies Will Adapt To New Circumstances And Survive. Others Will Not’
I don’t know if I’ll be entirely retired when I’m 74, but I plan to at least be semi-retired. That’s not the case for Hakan Samuelsson. He’d left Volvo as CEO of the company, but an uncertain future brought Samuellson back to the company he used to run.
He did a long interview with Bloomberg and he touches on the moment we are in:
Q: How do you see the car industry evolving from here?
A: The industry will be electric — there’s no turning back. It may take a bit longer in some regions, but the direction is clear. In (about) 10 years, cars will all be electric and they will be lower cost.There will be new dominant players, exactly as Ford, GM, Toyota and Volkswagen were in the old world. In the new world, there will be two or three very strong Chinese brands. That makes the room for the old ones tougher. So this will trigger a (wave of) restructuring. Some companies will adapt to new circumstances and survive. Others will not.
I think that is largely true. Who will the old, tougher brands be? Ford is making a play for the future.
‘Ready Set Ford’ Has Roots In Everyone’s Insecurity
Everything is changing. I can feel it. I know it. To some degree, I want the change to come.
As a website, The Autopian is disadvantaged in the short term by its membership model. There are competitors who are able to fill their pages with AI slop or, somehow worse, human-written articles that are designed to appeal to specific Google products. While we don’t ignore the traffic that can be gained from various platforms, we aren’t going to do it at the cost of posting articles from paid consulting firms that make the site worse.
The uncertainty of when and how and how much weighs on me, as it should given that that’s my job.
Ford killed all of its social media content yesterday, and people noticed. What was happening? Was there new product coming?
Nope. The company is still there. There’s no immediate new product. There’s just a new global branding strategy that replaces “Go Further.”
I think this is an improvement and, also, I don’t think I’m going to think about a catchphrase all that much. There is an explanation of it from Ford’s marketing chief Lisa Materazzo in The Detroit News that I am thinking about:
“Ford is a very optimistic and resilient brand, and that’s reflected in this idea of Ready Set Ford,” she said during a briefing. “We really tapped into some universal global trends that we were seeing. And one of those trends that is probably 24 months or more in the making has been this idea that consumers can really feel overwhelmed. The term that kept popping up is called polycrisis. … People are a bit overwhelmed, probably starting right around the time of COVID: So, health concerns, financial concerns, technology concerns — AI, what does AI mean for me?
“There are so many things that people feel angst about,” she continued. “However, the really interesting insight in all of that is people are actually very optimistic and very resilient when you give them the tools and the capability to feel empowered. And that was one of our big insights, because we think that we do that better than anybody else through our products, services and experiences.”
What the uncertainty around AI means for me is that I still want a Maverick Hybrid.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
As noted by Styx in their song “Mr. Roboto,” we all need control. I want control.
The Big Question
How do you feel about AI?
Top photo: Honda
Whenever a company talks about AI, unless they give any actual specifics, I always assume they’re talking out of their asses. I understand the technology. Sometimes it’s clear how the technology can be applied, but most of the time it’s obviously not applicable to anything. Just a buzzword for dumb investors.
What I was just about to say. Sick of companies just tossing AI term out there as a blanket statement when most of the time what ever the hell they are talking about is not actually AI.
I’m pretty sure mine have become less advanced since then.
AI.
Much negativity in the comments. I have taken time to use it and get an understanding of what it can and cannot do. I use it regularly, basically, daily at this point. I pay to use it so it doesn’t restrict me.
I have had this discussion in Discord, and will make my argument here the same as there.
AI is a tool. As with any tool, you need to learn to use it, and use it responsibly. Like any tool, it has limits (yet those are shrinking everyday). It is possible to use a socket wrench as a hammer, but it is the wrong use for that tool. That is the responsibility of the user, not the fault of the tool.
Blaming AI for making a picture of a child with 3 hands is not the fault of AI, but rather the fault of the user whom published the AI results without vetting them. Or just publishing it to smear AI or because of the lack of editing/reviewing what they just generated.
If you are not embracing AI in some form or another, you will be left behind. It is going to be a tool for (nearly) everyone to use. As an engineer, I have worked to figure out how to integrate it into my routines, and it saves time, simply put. As a person looking for a job, it has save me time, simply put. Yes, I read every cover letter it generates, but that is a 5 minute read, versus a 15-30 minute time needed to generate a new cover letter.
So, don’t fight the future. I used to be adamantly against fuel injection, and praised the carburetor until I learned the value that fuel injection added. I have no interest beyond nostalgia to use a carb ever again.
But from one old engineer to another – I use AI sparingly to ensure I still remember how to do things for myself. Example – I always quickly do the math in my head before I reach for the calculator (a well used HP42, positioned where my left hand naturally falls on my desk). I want to keep my math skills, so if the math is quick and doesn’t require a spreadsheet I do it quickly in my head or on a scratch pad (positioned where my right hand naturally falls on my desk).
I’ve seen engineers my age reach for the calculator for the simplest of problems – I don’t want to be that person.
Same with cover letters. I don’t mind writing them, mine must be simpler as it takes me a few minutes. And I stink at reviewing what others wrote.
So yes to AI as a tool, but my version of responsible use is quite limited.
I’m still going to need more time to think about whether to get something with fuel injection.
Get mechanical fuel injection. More accurate than a
metered fuel leakcarburetor, but without the digicals in the magic box.Honestly some mechanical injection systems seem more magical to me than the box with all the smoke in it.
These are pretty much my thoughts and experiences as well.
On one hand it’s definitely making me lazy in some areas of my work and I can identify areas where my ability to work things out myself may falter over time.
On the other, it’s enabled me to take middling knowledge in a subject and produce results that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve before. And from these results, I am learning more about the subject.
TBQ: I am an optimistic person in general, and I can see so much benefit that AI can bring. Unfortunately, Ford has me pegged: I’m overwhelmed by the possibility that our current Tech Robber Barons are not the people we want to create and have control of AI.
There is so much power available through AI. Democratizing knowledge will benefit everyone. Imagine having a doctor in your pocket at all times! However, it feels likely that the tech will always be gatekept (at least until someone starts Cyberdyne…) to the detriment of everyone except a select few.
All that “power” that is available through AI is the exact same “power” that the internet gave us. The “doctor in your pocket” type promise that came from the internet has been used by tech giants to enshittify care (apply the same logic to basically any type of service). AI will only continue that trend.
I share your concern, but a true AI is probably going to break a lot of things, including tech giants. For all the bluster of AI, there is precious little talk about what happens when it is achieved. Are we going to end up with Cyberdyne, or Star Trek?
Yes, I agree that it will be disruptive enough that some of the big guys will go down as well. New ones will emerge. Bottom line is I think the use of this tech will be a net negative for humanity.
Unless that doctor AI bot was specifically trained on known valid data, and not just everything the company could get their hands on, you have NO way to know if the output is valid. I’ve had some shit experiences with real doctors, so maybe the AI version will at least be cheaper. But I just can’t trust something if I don’t know what it was trained on.
This goes back to my optimistic outlook on life. Something like a true, well trained “doc in a pok”™® can be achieved. Just because I’m optimistic doesn’t mean I’m naïve or unrealistic. It is going to take a lot of work to get there, but it absolutely can and will be done. What it looks like when we get to that end is anyone’s guess.
Ford, in keeping with current practices, merely issued a recall of all social media posts.
As far as AI goes, my company, like many others, is in the middle of a BIG push to adopt AI, but doing so without really understanding the technology’s capabilities or limitations. I’m no Luddite, and I’m fine using AI as a tool, but I worry about the slippery slope of ceding skills.
COTD please, thank you.
I clearly remember late 1970’s when the Apple II was starting to get traction. Massive unemployment seemed to be the logical near-future consequence among some of the media.
Not to be discouraged, the smart, creative, started to go “all in” which they realized was a new unlimited tool. The transformation continues, exponentially.
AI is the second coming. Again, the applications will occur exponentially, probably quicker.
One of humanity’s biggest problems is that we LOVE to anthropomorphize things.
AI is just a “Yes, and” slot machine.
It doesn’t give you an answer to something, it gives you what it thinks an answer looks like.
If you ask for it to write code for a task, it just makes what it thinks it should look like.
This is the slot machine part. You feed enough
coinsprompts into the digital one-armed Bandit and eventually you get a hit.You can’t build reliable systems on machines that “learn”, cause at some point it’s just gonna feed ball bearings into the intake because it picked up a BS line somewhere about cleaning the cylinder walls.
Code is dumb and it needs clearly defined instruction sets that DO NOT CHANGE in order to have any level of reliability.
We didn’t teach a rock to think. We tricked everyone into thinking we taught a rock to think.
This will all blow up spectacularly.
I am a luddite yelling at clouds and rallying against AI as much as I can whereas my wife works for a data intelligence company and she is responsible for pushing out lots of AI initiatives. Now I know how George and Kellyanne Conway feel.
I actually like static machines in certain applications. Like a fully AI integrated infotainment system shouldn’t be implemented in every vehicle. Some users want that, but some just want a vehicle that works without requiring AI permissions, OTA updates or subscriptions.
These companies talk about OTA updates and continuous software improvement like their biggest dream isn’t the ability to brick cars in 5 years when they decide to stop supporting that model.
Yup, this. I have less than zero interest in any of this nonsense being integrated into my cars. And so I figure I have bought my last new car. No great loss to me, lots of lovely examples of the cars I like out there, and I already own five of them anyway.
How’s this for a concept? Get the damned thing right the first time so you don’t HAVE to do OTA updates. You can’t fix the stuff that really screws owners OTA anyway.
Ya want my feelings on ai? Ya wanna know what ai has done on so many other planets? The matrix and the terminator hits closer to the truth than you humans will ever know
Username checks out
I got a new phone this week…a Pixel 10, complete with Google’s AI Gemini. After struggling to get it to do the most basic tasks (it couldn’t even open the calculator app???), I switched back to Assistant, which won’t be an option for much longer because Google is supposed to be phasing it out.
I am so, so, so sick and ******* tired of AI. And don’t even get me started on the horribly produced slop that people happily share. Seriously, you didn’t notice that the ‘precious little child’ in the picture has a third hand and a strangely smeared mouth??? Or that the car has an impossibly wide front bumper compared to the rest of its geometry???
I really don’t understand how people expect AI to do anything practical at this point. It should be interesting when the bubble finally bursts though.
“Built Ford Tough” Became “Built Ford Proud” because the toughness was noticeably lacking. It’s only logical that “Go Further” went away because when you lead the industry in recalls and quality problems and design flaws, it’s only natural that you move away from that sort of false advertising.
Corporations are desperate to get people to adopt AI into everything because it must be best for humanity. Surely it is not another way for the 1% to screw everyone else over money.
Surely it is not a way to cut jobs while delivering a lower quality product. SURELY.
Can Ford just go back to “One Ford” and then actually follow through with it?
…and then bring back the E-series vans and not just the chassis cabs.
Wouldn’t that require bringing the Chinese Fusion and Z here?
We are definitely at an interesting point with Ai where depending on who you are you either think it is useless garbage or it will be doing absolutely everything in 2 years. Personally I think AI is definitely a useful tool but we are still in the stage of figuring out exactly how to use it. It won’t be applied everywhere as it’s supporters would have you believe, but there are definitely things it will be used for. Big parallels to the dot com boom.
I think this is a good take. The truth is often somewhere in the middle, e.g. Toyota’s approach contrasted with Tesla & Stellantis. To carry Matt’s Excel example further, I find the “flash fill” feature really handy in some very specific circumstances, but it doesn’t factor into most of what I use Excel for.
I sure hope that VW is not feeding their past engineering data to their AI. Think of the possibilities! A rear engined air cooled emission-cheating half diesel-half EV hybrid, with overly complicated trunk hinges featuring integrated sealed for life haldex pump, flaking capacitive door handles (with a separate button to choose front/rear), 7-clutch transmission and a cam belt – chain combination that both simultaniously fail at 2 years and one days or 100001 km, which ever is reached first. And a service position. The Skoda version is roomier, but has an umbrella instead of gas cap and a magnifying glass/plastic ice scraper combination instead of a key. Simply clever.
Despite being a POS, Henry Ford was wise enough to know that his workers ought to be able to afford his products.
When manufacturers use AI to eliminate workers, who’s going to buy their products?
Especially as there seems to be zero thought being put into the question of what people will do when millions of jobs and entire fields of work are eliminated. One of the goons behind AI recently mentioned that this will be a problem, but basically, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In other words, far too late. IMO there needs to be a big tax on the profits of AI companies that will then be given back to the people in the form of some sort of UBI. We’ve been helping them train AI for years, we deserve a piece.
Did you watch The Expanse? That’s where we are heading, without the space travel. To many people and not enough jobs. The Churn.
No, but thanks for the tip, I’ll have to check it out.
When insurance companies used computers to eliminate clerks and mailroom staff like the example Matt gave, who was left to buy their products? C’mon now.
Think I saw a post recently that was an AI chatbot replying to someone’s question that 1995 was 20 years ago, or something similar. No, please don’t use that to design a car.
To be fair, plenty of humans also feel like 1995 was 20 years ago. Or 10.
Wait…what year is it again?
I feel old. :/
I got used to 1995 being 20 years ago just in time for it to be 30 years ago. I was just starting to adjust to “knowing” the time frame, and I’ve got to learn it again. Damnit…!
I think one of the best use cases for AI is for brainstorming ideas. AI seems to be fabulous at generating a gigantic amount based off of minimal inputs. Yes most of it is slop but as it gets better the outputs will get more useful. The better the AI output gets the more novel solutions we could have. Any new process creates new problems, so the trick for us is to get better at evaluating the ideas faster than AI gets better at proposing them, so we don’t execute crappy ones.
Humans like to follow the herd socially; it’s very difficult to think too far outside of it, which is why people are so notable when they do (ie. Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Einstein; fill in your own favourite). AI would make this easier since it feels none of the social pressure, but it will still take a very strong effort to push good ideas into the mainstream. This would be a good check on dumb ideas getting very far.
TLDR definitely keep AI as close to the beginning of the creative process as possible
A few months back my emplyer had a contest to name our new safety initiative. Forthe hck of it, I put the parameters into copilot, which spit out a bunch of suggestions, some pretty good. I didn’t enter any, but a few weeks later when they announced the winner, it was one of the suggestions I got. Apparently another of my coworkers had the same idea.
Hey that direction VW is heading sounds very familiar (where I work is pushing the exact same thing). But working in the R&D side in the Auto industry for a while: everyone’s trying to find ways to speed up testing and validation because some of it takes weeks-months to set up and perform per test, which adds up when you have 2, 3, 4 plus iterations of the design before it hits production. Optimizing designs via simulation is nothing new and executives are more or less just attaching a new buzzword (AI) to what we’re already doing. The important part is essentially getting to the good enough design the 1st or 2nd time around as opposed to the 5th or 6th.
The term AI is a marketing lie as applied to all the technology out today, and I expect going well into the future. The economy surrounding it is overvalued and unstable, to the point of risking the national or even global economy when it goes down. The people in charge of it are so high on their own supply that in many cases they feel, or at least act like they’re inventing God.
The technology itself when removed from these factors is genuinely impressive, and shows great promise in important fields like medicine. It’s also pretty good at helping you figure out why your excel formulas don’t work.
Net negative IMO.
I mean, when the ChatGPT “upgrade” is a humiliating failure and the (already grossly overvalued) stock price barely budges, that tells us what we need to know.
I feel The Autopian should get with the times, and every day there should be an article about The Autopian’s own AI initiatives. Articles should be evaluated only by how often AI is mentioned per 100 words. Images should only be AI generated. There should be an AI-powered translator so I can finally understand Jeep things.
The AI-topian’s AI mascot should be that little yellow robot bank toy sold at Radio Shack that you could give a coin and it would “eat it.” Just… more AI.
Get this man a Consulting Firm!
This was my favorite comment today. Just depressingly, hilariously accurate.
Love it. I’d like to see a spin off called Autopian AI that brings to you the worst kind of AI auto news junk as satire. Kind alike the Onion. Each day could have a mutant car centerfold.
Honestly, I thought “Go Further” was a petroleum company slogan (i.e. BP, Shell, etc.) I haven’t driven a Ford lately and I don’t think quality is job 1, but at least I knew what company they were for.
My feelings on AI are I am already sick of it. Pizza Hut Pan Pizza AI will determine what toppings you will find most pleasing based on your body odor. I don’t need AI in my toaster.
I am a modren man, but with a new car in our home (2022) I’m already heavily distracted by the screen and connectivity, far more than I ever imagined it would. It’s a great car to drive BUT the tech is actually getting in the way of that.
Open door, everything comes to life. OK, I didn’t really want that, I was just here to clean the screens. Whoops, can’t clean the screens without accidentally pushing buttons. Where’s that button for “turn screen off?” OK here it is.
Already, now engine on, autostop off, Sport mode (because the 8AT is way too aggressive about efficiency in regular mode). Those are all buttons, no problem.
Hey, it’s a nice morning, let me turn A/C off. A/C Menu, A/C settings, A/C off. OK, back to the buttons….temp clicked all the way down to LO. Fan down to low. Windows down, sunroof cracked. Wait, not open, just cracked.
USB stick installed, MEDIA, search for artist, got it. Wait, where did the backup camera go?
Back to Park, now back to Reverse. There we go!
What do you think, son?!
“We’re late for school and you just hit the mailbox”
Brilliant
Sounds like there will be new jobs created for humans that will “un-AI” the slop that the AI creates, for example, removing extra wheels or making the interior coherent and able to fit a human body or two.
Replace “AI” with the current trend and that’s been the lucrative half of my career.
Lots of money to be made in… getting people to read manuals, understand that “Yes, we solved these problems 30+ years ago”, and replacing hot garbage with really basic, simple, cheap, fast known solutions to known problems.
I’ve already seen & heard ads for people to “train AI” (i.e. LLMs) in their spare time. This is starting now!