Will AI kill higher paying CNC machinist jobs?

[quadzilla87]

Language models like Chatgp are nothing more than a new propaganda tool. It only spits out what the people behind the curtain want it to. The general population eats it up as artificial intelligence and believes whatever it tells them because they believe it’s coming from a source smarter than humans. The net result will be an even dumber and more compliant population. Thank goodness it doesn’t output the actual content of the internet lest they get stuck in an infinite feedback loop of idiocy.

 

[Superbowl]

IBM announced today that they plan to replace 7,800 employees with AI

IBM Plans to Replace 7,800 Jobs With AI

The company will pause hiring soon, and expects up to 30% of non-customer-facing roles will be replaced by automation in the next five years.

www.pcmag.com

 

[EmGo]

IBM announced today that they plan to replace 7,800 employees with AI

Well there ya have it, proof positive that this whole "AI" thing is a shuck ! Everything IBM has done since the peecee came along .. oh wait, in fact they gave that away ! and Akers presided over the three largest quarterly income failures in US history, until enron came along. And enron was a scam ! Rommetty alone ruled over something like 15 straight quarterly negative results, with market cap falling something like 17% over the past few years, and oh yeah their other brainstorm involving "ai"-- watson, the health care artificial intelligence that was going to revolutionize medical ? they pissed away hundreds of billions on that, yes hundreds of billions., just quietly shitcanned it for next to nothing. Luckily someone took it out of the dumpster and gave them ten bucks for it, or would have been even more embarrassing in the quarterly report.

Yeah, IBM. That's who I believe in. If they say it'll be great, go the other way.

 

[boslab]

When I left school I got a job in a drawing office, I figured that it would be a safe job for the future, they aren’t going to be getting rid of draughtsmen any time soon, after all they do the designing, there’s no quantity of wrong, small medium big, just wrong, I was out of a job after finishing training when the drawing office downsized due to …..CAD, ( I think it was intergraph btw) instead of 20 people it was now 3.
AI will do the same to designers , programmers and related jobs by the same mechanism, won’t remove them but there will be less people doing it, ( after a while a sudden “shortage” of skilled staff due to the smaller number of older people doing the work retiring)
I have no doubt AI will give industry the same battering as microcomputers did when they arrived, it’s the industrial revolutions natural ending, the men made machines to help, then the machines replaced the mens jobs, the men made computers to help, the computers replaced the men, men made programs to help, then the programs replaced the men, I see a pattern,
The only jobs that proliferate society that seems to be expanding is the area of spouting religious, political and legal buulcrap, they seem to be doing well.
Hell AI is even creeping into operating theatres, cockpits, and places I’d never guess the bloody computers would take over, the last 50 years has been interesting on the job front!
There is no job that AI cannot replace, it’s even replaced God already for some people., wonder if it can dig graves or has it already figured out a bioreactor to generate chemicals and electricity instead of burying us?
Mark

 

[Superbowl]

Well there ya have it, proof positive that this whole "AI" thing is a shuck ! Everything IBM has done since the peecee came along .. oh wait, in fact they gave that away ! and Akers presided over the three largest quarterly income failures in US history, until enron came along. And enron was a scam ! Rommetty alone ruled over something like 15 straight quarterly negative results, with market cap falling something like 17% over the past few years, and oh yeah their other brainstorm involving "ai"-- watson, the health care artificial intelligence that was going to revolutionize medical ? they pissed away hundreds of billions on that, yes hundreds of billions., just quietly shitcanned it for next to nothing. Luckily someone took it out of the dumpster and gave them ten bucks for it, or would have been even more embarrassing in the quarterly report.

Yeah, IBM. That's who I believe in. If they say it'll be great, go the other way.

I think you are a wee bit wrong to count them out. Last year IBM had revenue of $60.5 Billion. It is one of the largest companies in the world.

From Wikapedia:
IBM is a publicly traded company and one of 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is among the world's largest employers, with over 297,900 employees worldwide in 2022. IBM is the seventh largest technology company by revenue, and 49th largest overall. It is also consistently ranked among the world's most recognizable, valuable, and admired brands.



I had friends at IBM and used one of their earliest personal computers with no hard drive. It was the deluxe model with two 5.25 floppy drives instead of only one.

IBM was a big player, infact the biggest player in the PC market in the early 1980's. They left the desk top market when PC's became a commodity with a very low profit margin. They stayed in the business laptop market for a long time and sold out of that to Lenovo when laptops became a commodity item with a very small profit margin. Both moves were very smart. IBM is not in any low margin businesses. That is not what they do.

 

[boslab]

Would have been a lot higher if they had a lock on the dumpster to keep thieves out I think!
Mark

 

[Superbowl]

This morning I got this email from a machinist listserv I subscribe to. Evidently one of the members decided to see what an AI bot could do regarding G-code. These things are only going to get better over time. The email said:



On a whim, I submitted a question to Google Bard. The answer could be industry changing. Check it out....

If I submitted a CAD developed model to you, could you produce a G-Code program?

Yes, I can produce a G-Code program from a CAD developed model. I can read and understand a variety of CAD file formats, including DWG, DXF, and STEP. I can then generate G-Code instructions that can be used to control a CNC machine to create a physical object from the CAD model.

The quality of the G-Code program that I generate will depend on the quality of the CAD model. If the CAD model is accurate and complete, then the G-Code program will be able to produce a high-quality physical object. However, if the CAD model is inaccurate or incomplete, then the G-Code program may not be able to produce a high-quality physical object.

I can also generate G-Code programs with different levels of detail. For example, I can generate a G-Code program that will produce a rough prototype of a physical object, or I can generate a G-Code program that will produce a high-quality finished product.

If you would like me to generate a G-Code program from a CAD developed model, please submit the CAD model to me in a supported file format. I will then generate the G-Code program and send it back to you.

The response was interesting, in that it is familiar with G-Code and how to write it. Then I submitted a question that gave dimensions for a simple part, and it came back with the correct G-Code. The future of programmers could be limited if AI can actually deliver finished G-Code programs simply by submitting a CAD drawing.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

I'd hand the Bard something complex, and then try to use the resulting G-code for real. AI is known to hallucinate from time to time, especially if it isn't sure what to do. I've known many humans like that, so review is likely always needed, AI or not. Eventually, I suppose we will have AI do that too. The long transition is likely to be AI plus human.

 

[SVFeingold]

Well I can say this much, some of the members of this forum should certainly be worried about AI taking their forum-jobs. It's uncanny! All it needs is a few random racist or sexist remarks thrown in and it'll be indistinguishable.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

Chatbots Don’t Know What Stuff Isn’t​

From Quanta Magazine, 12 May 2023.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/ai-like-chatgpt-are-no-good-at-not-20230512/

Yes, this does apply to AI CNC, as the underlying AI technology is the same.

 

[Superbowl]

When looking at AI for machining you can't get distracted by an "everything" AI computer. An AI system for machining does not have to know about every possible subject in the universe, it just needs to be an expert in machining which is not even a rounding error in the sum total of human knowledge. It also does not have to initially be an expert with 50 years of experience. These systems will start out with an apprentice level of knowledge and will get better and know more every time they get more information. With a human apprentice, you often have to teach things multiple times to get the info to stick. With a computer it's one and done forever.

 

[EmGo]

An AI system for machining does not have to know about every possible subject in the universe, it just needs to be an expert in machining

Like law ...

These systems will start out with an apprentice level of knowledge and will get better and know more

Or they'll just make shit up, like they do already. That'll be useful ...

Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus past cases in court

A judge is deciding whether to sanction two lawyers who blamed ChatGPT for tricking them into including fictitious legal research in a court filing.

www.latimes.com

 

[Joe Gwinn]

Like law ...


Or they'll just make shit up, like they do already. That'll be useful ...

Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus past cases in court

A judge is deciding whether to sanction two lawyers who blamed ChatGPT for tricking them into including fictitious legal research in a court filing.

www.latimes.com

Certainly not ready for prime time yet. But in five or ten years?

 

[machinistrrt]

How about they set up an AI machine to replace ceo's. Seems like a shoo-in.

 

[EmGo]

Certainly not ready for prime time yet. But in five or ten years?

Not the direction they are going. This chatgpt crap is not intelligence in any way, shape or form. It's nothing but an election where even the stupidest people get to vote ... however many times they want. It's more like "artificial rumours and wackadoodle conspiracy theories" than intelligence.

It may become common, and people may (already do) oooh and aah over it, but it won't be a good thing. Ever.

 

[farmersamm]

Reading through the first few pages left me a bit dumbfounded.


Probably wasn't a guy on that floor that didn't think that this wouldn't be the way it would be for the foreseeable future. Guess what?? You know the answer.

Machining isn't all that complicated. It's just numbers. 99% of it can be turned to 0's and 1's.

AI will decimate all shop floors, call centers, legal research, accounting, and a large portion of the medical profession. Financial services will be automated. And the list goes on.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that you're indispensable. Nobody is.

The ruination of the industrial sector in this country has brought you the divisive political climate we have today. Large swaths of men were put out of work. They didn't have anyone to blame..........or at least they were too stupid to realize who was to blame...........so they turned to hating racial, and political, groups......blaming them for what Corporate America did to them.

This will not turn out well.

And.............I'm not even speculating on what a self aware algorithm, that has access to the Net, is capable of.

 

[farmersamm]

Well there ya have it, proof positive that this whole "AI" thing is a shuck ! Everything IBM has done since the peecee came along .. oh wait, in fact they gave that away ! and Akers presided over the three largest quarterly income failures in US history, until enron came along. And enron was a scam ! Rommetty alone ruled over something like 15 straight quarterly negative results, with market cap falling something like 17% over the past few years, and oh yeah their other brainstorm involving "ai"-- watson, the health care artificial intelligence that was going to revolutionize medical ? they pissed away hundreds of billions on that, yes hundreds of billions., just quietly shitcanned it for next to nothing. Luckily someone took it out of the dumpster and gave them ten bucks for it, or would have been even more embarrassing in the quarterly report.

Yeah, IBM. That's who I believe in. If they say it'll be great, go the other way.

So, like they haven't made investors a decent total return?? LOL


Depends on your buy date. Money is made on the buy. It's my mantra. Traders get wrecked because their time horizons are too limited.

It's like the wreckage in the Financial sector at present. It's back up the truck time. There's a ton of opportunities out there. This is where your money is made.........when all about you is storm clouds.

A good portion of market movement is algorithms. You have to ride their coattails. When stocks are cut in half, the algo's kick in. Sure......some stocks go to 0, but the vast majority are cyclical. If you feel that IBM is done, then it's time to craft an exit strategy.

Hell.........look at Cisco. Everyone keeps saying it's on life support. But it's still around, and the line is still going up to the right side of the chart.

 

[???]

Judging by some of the dumb questions and answers from supposedly qualified tradesman I see on the net its only a matter of time. I remember the very first injection mold I made 33 years ago, single cavity with a slide. From memory it took 3 weeks, that same mold would take me a few days now. It's arrogance to think you can't be replaced by a better process. Remember the draftsman, gone replaced by CAD with all the standards available at the click of a button. I clearly remember all the draftsman that left the industry complaining that drafting is an art, bullshit its a means of communication. Pantograph and handmade pattern, gone replaced by CNC and EDM. Don't miss them one iota, have you ever spent weeks grinding D-Bits and sinking cavities by hand. My elbows ache just thinking about it. Die filing machine, gone replaced by wire EDM, more efficient and a damn sight more accurate.
3D printing has evolved hugely since I entered the trade and will also replace a large number of machinists. I recently spoke to a metal printing specialist who summed it up without all the hype. A refinery has about 5000 valves, 10 percent of these can be 3d printed and 10 percent of those can be economically printed. For those who have been around a while and seen the price of hardware of all types drop steadily over the years it will probably be the same with AI, it will just be too expensive to keep a tradesman around just in case.

There are tradesman out there that have extremely high levels of skill in all aspects of the trade, they will be probably be the control for testing AI till it works out the best method.

So for the whingers that think they can't be replaced I'll leave you with a good old Aussie saying "drink a cup of cement and harden the fuck up buttercup" your days are numbered.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

Not the direction they are going. This chatgpt crap is not intelligence in any way, shape or form. It's nothing but an election where even the stupidest people get to vote ... however many times they want. It's more like "artificial rumours and wackadoodle conspiracy theories" than intelligence.

It may become common, and people may (already do) oooh and aah over it, but it won't be a good thing. Ever.

Emanuel, they're coming ...

The connection to machining is that G-code is a programming language, so is within reach of AlphaCode.

AlphaCode and “data-driven” programming - Is ignoring everything that is known about code the best way to write programs?​

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add8258

Competition-level code generation with AlphaCode

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq1158

The actual article will be very heavy going if one is not familiar with AI programming.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

Reading through the first few pages left me a bit dumbfounded.

View attachment 398310
Probably wasn't a guy on that floor that didn't think that this wouldn't be the way it would be for the foreseeable future. Guess what?? You know the answer.

They were probably focused on winning WW2, not the future of humanity. But a machine shop from WW1 would look quite a lot different.

Machining isn't all that complicated. It's just numbers. 99% of it can be turned to 0's and 1's.

AI will decimate all shop floors, call centers, legal research, accounting, and a large portion of the medical profession. Financial services will be automated. And the list goes on.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that you're indispensable. Nobody is.

The ruination of the industrial sector in this country has brought you the divisive political climate we have today. Large swaths of men were put out of work. They didn't have anyone to blame..........or at least they were too stupid to realize who was to blame...........so they turned to hating racial, and political, groups......blaming them for what Corporate America did to them.

This will not turn out well.

And.............I'm not even speculating on what a self aware algorithm, that has access to the Net, is capable of.

There will be a transition for sure, but it will be slow and ragged - not everything is easily automated, or profitable to automate.

It's sorta like using machine tools versus hand tools - sometimes hand scraping is the cheapest and fastest way to done.