OT: Research: ChatGPT tested in an engineering class

Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, instructors have worried about how students might circumvent learning by utilizing the chat bot to complete homework and other assignments. Over the years, the large language model has enabled AI to expand its database and its ability to answer more complex questions, but can it replace a student’s efforts entirely?

Graduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s college of engineering integrated a large language model into an undergraduate aerospace engineering course to evaluate its performance compared to the average student’s work.

The researchers, Gokul Puthumanaillam and Melkior Ornik, found that ChatGPT earned a passing grade in the course without much prompt engineering, but the chat bot didn’t demonstrate understanding or comprehension of high-level concepts. Their work illustrating its capabilities and limitations was published on the open-access platform arXiv, operated by Cornell Tech.

5 Likes

…and so we have still not arrived at the nub of the issue — high quality flimflammery is still fundamentally flimflammery.

9 Likes

The Mechanical Turk 1770

3 Likes

I remember the days when instructors worried about students using digital calculators.

The Captain

2 Likes

That memory sent a chill down my spine, remembering my slide rule.

2 Likes

I put my slide rules in a garage sale, in the early 80s. To my amazement, someone bought them.

Steve

I still have mine … …

2 Likes

Slide rules on sale on eBay, priced from $15 to $200. Some with cases, some with belt clips, some circular, some new.

Most popular price on first glance: $35.

Pickett Simplex Trigs, like I had, seem to be going for $15-$20, plus shipping. Of course, they were not “collectible” when I got rid of mine. I would have needed to lug the things around for another 40 years, to get that price. $20 today is about $6.25 in 1983.

Steve

Oh, laugh now, but some day in a post apocalyptic future will be a wizard in a cave, auguring the future with a funny set of sliding sticks.

4 Likes

One of the great scenes in Apollo 13 is after things go south they all break out their slide rules and ask each other if they got the same answer.

2 Likes

When I was in high school, the teacher required accuracy + or - 3, on the third digit. So, yes, I can see using a hive mind to produce greater accuracy.

Steve

2 Likes

While I was an Apple reseller a cousin gave me a Japanese abacus as a birthday present. Lovely craftsmanship! One of the first things I did was to study how it processed input to render the result. What I found fascinating is that it used a bi-quinary encoding, the same as the IBM 650 used! I baptized it Apple 0.

The Captain

Bi-quinary coded decimal - Wikipedia.

3 Likes