In an ASME SmartBrief article titled “ChatGPT Shows Promise as Teaching Tool” researchers in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iowa have been working with ChatGPT-4 to pass the FE Exam, one of the requirements to become a professional engineer. In a paper not yet published, they believe ChatGPT could pass the FE Exam, but also “help optimize learning experiences for human students and become a valuable assistant for professional engineers.”
In their experiments with the FE Exam, they had to make some modifications to the questions since ChatGPT has “text-based limitations.” For example, for questions involving point-and-click or drag-and-drop the researchers “translated visual elements into text descriptions.” Before applying these modifications ChatGPT scored a 66.42, which provided a benchmark, then it scored a 75.37 after receiving these modifications.
The researchers also see ChatGPT becoming a virtual tutor for both students and practicing engineers, however the researchers state that “AI should be viewed as a collaborative tool that can enhance the engineer’s capability, not replace them. It’s the synergy between human expertise and AI’s computational power that will define the future of the profession.”
It will be interesting to follow the use of AI in education and engineering practice. And “yes”, I am confident that ChatGPT will one day pass the FE and the PE exams. – Dr. Tom
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