VW Dieselgate scandal: Two former execs sentenced to prison terms!

This dates back to May, I'm clearing out some old tabs.

Four executives were convicted in German court of naughtiness concerning the manipulation of tailpipe diesel emissions. They rigged the computers so that under specific configurations, only found in static testing conditions, the engines would tune-down and produce lower particulate levels and would pass. Then, in real-life road driving, the engines would be tuned-up and produce higher performance and higher emissions.

The result, aside from prison terms, were thousands of cars being recalled and replaced and huge losses for the company.

From the article: "The former head of diesel development was sentenced to four and a half years in prison, and the head of drive train electronics to two years and seven months by the court in Braunschweig, German news agency dpa reported. Two others received suspended sentences of 15 months and 10 months."

We toured a VW assembly plant in Dresden just two months before this particular scandal broke. Amazing place. It kind of broke my heart when it came to light to see how well VW was doing things in this one instance, while doing a rug pull regarding diesel emissions in another.

Further in the article: "The company has paid more than $33 billion in fines and compensation to vehicle owners. Two VW managers received prison sentence in the U.S. The former head of the company’s Audi division, Rupert Stadler, was given a suspended sentence of 21 months and a fine of 1.1 million euros ($1.25 million). The sentence is still subject to appeal.

Missing from the trial, which lasted almost four years, was former CEO Martin Winterkorn. Proceedings against him have been suspended because of health issues, and it’s not clear when he might go on trial. Winterkorn has denied wrongdoing.

Further proceedings are open against 31 other suspects in Germany. So it ain't over yet for the company.

Wikipedia states that Volkswagen Group is the largest company in the EU and the largest car company in the world by revenue. It goes in to list their marques as: "The Volkswagen Group sells passenger cars under the Audi, Bentley, Cupra, Jetta, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda and Volkswagen brands, motorcycles under the Ducati name, light commercial vehicles under the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand, and heavy commercial vehicles via the marques of the listed subsidiary Traton (International Motors, MAN, Scania and Volkswagen Truck & Bus).

https://apnews.com/article/volkswagen-germany-diesel-emissions-court-fraud-3878fcf6c06c9574bf5bff8d31029f90

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/27/2155250/german-court-sends-vw-execs-to-prison-over-dieselgate-scandal

More LLM fun! Miserable fail at running a vending machine business simulation.

Another old tab from May.

This is quite interesting. Researchers set up multiple LLMs and configured them to run a vending machine simulator, described as "Agents must balance inventories, place orders, set prices, and handle daily fees – tasks that are each simple but collectively, over long horizons." Basic business process.

The LLMs behaviors were, shall we say, interesting.

As the run went on over multiple simulated days, one decided it was the victim of cybercrime and 'reported' the event to the FBI (it had an email simulator but no external connection), another declared its quantum state as collapsed, yet another threatened suppliers with "ABSOLUTE FINAL ULTIMATE TOTAL NUCLEAR LEGAL INTERVENTION".

Basically it was a demonstration of how such large-language models are terrible for long-term runs and shows their ability to hallucinate and make poor decisions. I'll have some more posts on that soon, particularly concerning Canada and Australia.

The paper is quite interesting, detailing how some of the LLMs melt down and can't prioritize tasks. For example, a person knows that we must receive orders from suppliers before we can send someone out to refill a machine. The LLM might assume that on the date the order is promised, as soon as that date arrives the orders are suddenly there and the stocker can be immediately dispatched, even if there is no product or a shortage. Now the vending machine is understocked and the LLM doesn't understand why.

LLM no thinkie good.

The paper:
https://arxiv.org/html/2502.15840v1

The Slashdot article:
https://slashdot.org/story/25/05/31/2112240/failure-imminent-when-llms-in-a-long-running-vending-business-simulation-went-berserk