Column: Embedded design
Te current generation of these tools will (and I’m using the term again) uncritically generate content based on both correct and incorrect (or relevant and irrelevant, and sometimes fictitious) sources, bundled up into an impressively coherent, believable and usually completely wrong result. However, the one AI result I have never seen is “I don’t know”. Our LLM tools will produce an ocean of utter slop before admitting that. I have actually seen this effect first
hand. Material of mine was apparently “a bit wordy” and was put through an AI document processing tool, to generate a more concise slab of text. It didn’t do a terrible job of it either: Te grammar remained correct, and to a greater or lesser extent the overall “feel” remained. Unfortunately, the AI tool excised large slabs of information, rendering some parts incomprehensible, referring for example to graphs it had removed, while its haphazard editing totally changed the meaning of the document’s conclusion to something entirely different to my original, rendering it completely wrong.
The AI effect Tere is also a societal issue wrapped up in the increased usage of AI tools. In the right hands they do indeed seem to (at least superficially) increase productivity. Te flagship in this case is the use of tools like Claude or Cursor in code writing, either by partner coding with an AI ‘co-worker’ or in the awfully named vibe coding where the AI tool is given complete authority over both the initial code and the testing and re-writes, with the human only auditing the results. However, the upshot of this, and other
similar examples, has been a collapse in entry level (graduate and apprentice level)
recruitment, which according to one study has seen a reduction of up to 30%. Now imagine that propagating through
other areas of the industry, which we are probably already seeing, and we are looking at a very worrying trend: A smaller number of senior employees can achieve much more (with admittedly inferior quality, but we are looking at this through manager- eyes here), so junior recruiting slows to a trickle. Massive wage bill savings. What could go wrong? Roll forward a few decades, or even just
years: Tose senior staff have retired or died, and the entire (greatly diminished) pool of potential recruits are habituated to using the “magic results box” instead of the skills that they no longer have, so your subsequent generations of “engineers” – and I’m using the term very loosely here – are no longer creators or innovators, or even designers. Instead you have a sort of caste of worshippers at the shrine of the machine god, locked into the same endless stagnant circle without any true understanding of what they are actually doing. Tat, I confess, is dystopian hyperbole,
but present any manager with that “magic immediate cheap results box” and they will make that Faustian bargain: results now, and the future be damned! Perhaps in a few areas at least we might be
close to that “magic box”. Considering the current level of development, engineering- related AI tools are capable of producing useful results. Not always of the best quality, but AI translated datasheets are readable, AI generated soſtware is (with some human curating) usable, and “assisted” mechanical and electronic design tools are starting to produce useful output.Which means that it is time to take a long hard look in the mirror, and ask yourself “Why are you an Engineer,
anyhow?”. I’m willing to guess <sarcasm mode> that it isn’t the rock-and-roll lifestyle, the social status or the footballer level salaries. Although, more seriously, I’ll lay a bet that it’s the unique feeling of creating something, of building something, that is innovative, new and unique. If you aren’t looking forward to a future
of just mindlessly stirring the pot of ever- degrading machine-generated slop, or if a career on the “AI rubbish clean-up crew” doesn’t appeal, then maybe it is time for us to borrow Captain Ludd’s hammer and give it a bit of a swing. From what I have seen, we have released
a genie from the bottle, and that genie is intent on polluting, ruining and diminishing everything it can touch. See you on the barricades.
RECRUITMENT SOURCES:
Sources for quoted statistics (which aren’t AI-generated fictitious ones):
https://observer.co.uk/news/business/ article/uk-graduates-lose-out-as-ai- fills-entry-level-jobs
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/ ai-chatgpt-graduate-entry-level-
jobs-b1237456.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/ bulletin/news/chatgpt-entry-level-job-
decline-b2779772.html
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/27/ ai-may-already-be-shrinking-entry- level-jobs-in-tech-new-research- suggests/
Tis column on embedded design prepared by Myk Dormer continues in the next month’s edition of Electronics World.
www.electronicsworld.co.uk December 2025/January 2026 15
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