The future ain’t what it used to be

Bob Rutherford Headshot
Updated Feb 16, 2023

I guess I’m one of the first to conclude ChatGPT is going to play a major role in autonomous truck maintenance via the Technology and Maintenance Council (TMC). But in the words of the ChatGPT version of Hunter S. Thompson, “It's a wild and trippy concept."

I think TMC has grown accustomed to wild and trippy concepts over the years and will be an early adopter of a ChatGPT system to handle the masses of technical data it generates.

It seems many of my LinkedIn connections and readers of CCJ are playing with the AI tool, and the first conclusions I am hearing can be summed up by the ChatGPT version of Dr. Thompson, whose voice in which I asked the platform to stylize its responses: “This ChatGPT is a strange animal, man. It's like a wild beast that's been let loose on the world. We've got to be careful with it. I mean, sure, it's fun to play with, but we've got to remember that it's not a substitute for firsthand knowledge and theory.”

I asked this digital monster to give me an intro to Dr. W. Edwards Deming's Red Bead Experiment, and what do you think it spewed out? A load of nonsense about how you can't force knowledge on anyone, and that there's tons of figures but no actual knowledge.

Where did it get that from? It's like it has no clue what it's talking about.

When I pushed back, it corrected itself and I thought we were in the clear. No such luck. Despite being fed millions upon millions of documents, the AI still has a shallow understanding of Deming. It doesn't have personal experiences or opinions, but it still spews out uninformed opinions like it's got all the answers.

So, I asked it a deeper question about Deming's theory of transformation and, once again, I was met with a lackluster response.

I again pushed back, and it corrected itself. I asked if it had updated its training with new knowledge, and that's when the real craziness started. It's like the AI has no idea what's going on and is just regurgitating whatever it's been fed.

If Deming were still around to see this, I think he'd be shaking his head in disbelief. He'd seen enough hacks in his day that misrepresented his teachings, and now here we are with an AI that's doing the same thing.

He warned us about this.

He said that the use of computers instead of actual knowledge would take its toll on American production, and now we've got this AI that's spouting off nonsense and providing ignorance on tap.

This ChatGPT is indeed a strange animal, man. It's like a wild beast that's been let loose on the world. We've got to be careful with it.

Sure, it's fun to play with but we've got to remember that it's not a substitute for firsthand knowledge and theory.

We can't just blindly trust this AI to give us the answers we're looking for.

It's a dangerous road to go down.

Bob Rutherford is a 50-year veteran of the trucking industry. Thirty of those years were as a member of the TMC where he earned both the Silver Spark Plug and Recognized Associate awards for his contributions to the industry. He is also an Ambassador for the EnergyandMobility.org Conference.