Yes but no. They wanted as many pilots to fly the new aircraft as possible without having to get them re-type certified which is pretty expensive. The issue is that pilots were completely unaware of the MCAS and when it malfunctioned there was not correct training in place because the system was "a hidden abstraction"

Clearly the system worked as intended because nobody had to be re-certified to fly the aircraft but being completely unaware of an additional control layer is dangerous and should have been known about by pilots, but Boeing kept it hidden.

So cutting costs in a way that is explicitly unsafe. Seems a little bit like splitting hairs but I get what you’re saying