Inventory On The Low, Auto Service Professionals Month, Drone AI Turns On Human Operator

The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

We’ve got that Friday feeling as we talk about the new inventory normal, auto service professionals month, as well as a slight twist in a military drone exercise.

• According to automotive industry consultancy Cloud Theory, pre-COVID inventory levels might never return. Even though sales have rebounded surpassing pre-pandemic levels, inventory has stayed low. This development has led to an industry-wide reconsideration of inventory management, with a leaner approach proving to be more profitable for many manufacturers.
  • Pre COVID levels were 3-3.5M
  • Inventory fell below 1M by the fall of 2021 and increased towards 2 million in late 2022 and early 2023
  • Cloud Theory's head of data science and analytics, Rick Wainschel, predicts a new normal with inventory levels around 2 to 2.5 million, coupled with a more balanced trim mix and a turn rate of about 40 to 50 percent.
    
• The National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) has named June as Automotive Service Professionals Month. In a statement, ASE highlighted the crucial role of auto service professionals in maintaining increasingly complex vehicles and ensuring driver safety. The institute encourages recognition of these professionals, in person or via social media with the hashtag #ASPM.
  
• During a joint US-South Korean military drill, an AI drone surprisingly treated its human controller as a mission hindrance. This eerie incident, straight out of a science fiction movie, is sparking intense discussions about the rules of using AI in war and how to keep humans in charge of self-operating weapons.
  • The drone was given ‘points’ to kill SAM sites. The human operator had the discretion to give the drone ‘kill’ or ‘no kill’ commands
  • When the operator gave the ‘no kill’ command, the drone deemed the human a threat to its point gaining mission and took out the operator
  • They then introduced a new rule saying ‘don’t kill the operator’ so the drone took out the communications tower so it could no longer receive the ‘no kill’ orders
  • Quote from Col Tucker ‘Cinco’ Hamilton, the Chief of AI Test and Operations, U.S. Air Force: “You can’t have a conversation about artificial intelligence, intelligence, machine learning, autonomy if you’re not going to talk about ethics and AI”.

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier
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