GM’s tech czar has a novel view of what AI can do | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

General Motors, like most companies these days, is fully committed to investing in artificial intelligence.

But in a recent interview, GM Senior Vice President of Software and Service Engineering David Richardson suggests the company is taking a somewhat unique approach.

GM CEO Mary Barra also said in the company’s second-quarter earnings call that because it is “embracing AI across the enterprise,” it recruited Barak Turovsky to lead GM’s AI ambitions under Richardson’s leadership.

Turovsky, 49, has more than 25 years of AI experience, according to GM, and he most recently served as the vice president of AI at Cisco.

“Barak is building a world-class team of applied AI experts and researchers as we redefine how intelligence powers vehicle performance, customer experience and operational excellence at GM,” Barra said during the earnings call.

Eventually, GM expects AI will further differentiate it from competitors. Richardson’s interview with Axios laid out exactly how the company plans to do that.

GM doesn’t see AI the same way Tesla does

AI has become such a potent buzzword that many investors, and some executives, have warned that there is an AI bubble forming.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently told reporters, “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes,” according to The Verge.

Altman didn’t necessarily admit that grand declarations from executives like himself may be contributing to the problem.

But GM seems to be taking are more clear-eyed view of the technology and what it can do.

Having spent 12 years with Apple before joining GM, Richardson, like Altman, has similar criticism about the current state of AI.

“I do think there’s a lot of hype in AI, and there’s a lot of tendency to do AI for AI’s sake,” he told Axios.

“Right now, our vision is we want to use AI to actually drive real ROI for the business, as well as develop consumer-facing products that people actually need and they actually want.”

This is a slightly different than what Tesla and Elon Musk are promising.

The report points out that Musk has promised a world with 1 million Tesla AI humanoid robots by the end of the decade.

While Tesla backers like Cathy Wood say that Tesla’s AI tech could be worth trillions by that time, Richardson is a bit more skeptical.

“I don’t want to say it’s never going to happen. I think it’s very early, and I do think there’s a question as to what is the overall value you get from that,” Richardson said.

GM is already using AI in a practical way

Instead of a factory full of AI-powered humanoid robots, GM instead sees a future full of “cobots” operating alongside humans to do the more dangerous and strenuous work.

“We’ve got so much proprietary data around how to do manufacturing, and that’s like a treasure trove of data for us to train AI to do that,” Richardson said.

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GM factories are already using AI vision systems to detect paint imperfections and welding defects, meticulous work that was previously done manually.

GM also says it is using AI to do things such as analyzing traffic patterns and EV usage data to figure out where to place charging stations; detecting voltage anomalies in battery packs before they’re placed in vehicles; and quickly optimizing aerodynamics in vehicle design, saving time and money.