Why ChatGPT Will Never Replace Engineers, According To ChatGPT

So, I asked ChatGPT why it would never replace engineers. It was not entirely wrong (or rather, the human-written stuff it plagiarized wasn't entirely wrong).

Some of those who have commented recently on posts I have written about this issue have higher hopes for ChatGPT than it does for itself. Here's what it said (I think numbers 3 and 9 are key):

While ChatGPT and other AI models have become increasingly powerful in assisting with various tasks, they are unlikely to fully replace engineers for several key reasons:

1. Creativity and Innovation

Engineers are essential for innovation and creative problem-solving. Engineering often involves designing novel solutions to unique challenges, which requires deep intuition, experience, and an ability to think outside the box. AI, while excellent at processing data and recognizing patterns, lacks the kind of creativity and visionary thinking that human engineers bring to the table.

2. Contextual Understanding

Engineers work within complex systems, often balancing trade-offs between multiple competing factors such as cost, safety, performance, and ethics. Human engineers bring a deep understanding of the broader context of projects, including industry standards, company goals, and user needs. AI models like ChatGPT can assist with specific tasks, but they lack the full context to make high-level decisions and weigh these complex factors.

3. Physical World and Hands-On Work

Engineering frequently involves practical, hands-on tasks, especially in fields like mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering. Engineers often need to physically build, test, and iterate on designs, using manual skills that AI cannot replicate. ChatGPT can assist with simulations, calculations, and theory, but it cannot directly manipulate the physical world.

4. Ethical and Human Judgment

Engineers often face situations where ethical and moral judgments are required, such as ensuring the safety of users or managing environmental impacts. These decisions require human intuition, empathy, and moral reasoning that AI lacks. AI operates based on logic and predefined rules but cannot make value-based decisions the way human engineers can.

5. Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

Engineers frequently collaborate with other professionals, such as designers, business leaders, and clients, which involves communication, negotiation, and understanding human needs. While AI can assist in technical aspects of these collaborations, it lacks the social and emotional intelligence necessary for effective interpersonal relationships and teamwork.

6. Handling Uncertainty and Ambiguity

Engineering projects are often ambiguous and have incomplete information. Engineers are skilled at dealing with uncertainty, adapting to unforeseen challenges, and making judgment calls when things do not go as planned. AI models like ChatGPT can provide guidance based on data, but they struggle with situations where there are no clear patterns or when there is significant ambiguity.

7. Legal and Regulatory Constraints

Many engineering disciplines are highly regulated, and engineers are held to strict legal and professional standards. Engineers are responsible for ensuring that their designs comply with these regulations, which often require nuanced interpretation and understanding of legal language. AI tools can assist in finding information or highlighting key points, but they cannot take legal responsibility for decisions.

8. Continuous Learning and Adaptation

While AI can learn from vast datasets, human engineers are adept at lifelong learning and adapting to new technologies, methodologies, and innovations. The ability to integrate new knowledge into real-world applications in a holistic way is a human trait that AI models are not fully capable of. Engineers often pioneer new techniques and push the boundaries of technology in ways that AI can only follow.

9. Ownership and Accountability

Engineers are responsible for the outcomes of their designs and decisions. In the case of failures, they must analyze what went wrong, take accountability, and find solutions. AI does not take responsibility for outcomes—it is a tool that assists in decision-making, but the final responsibility will always lie with human engineers.

In summary, while AI like ChatGPT can complement engineers by improving efficiency, assisting with calculations, simulations, or even brainstorming solutions, it lacks the creativity, judgment, hands-on experience, and ethical decision-making abilities that are fundamental to the engineering profession. Rather than replacing engineers, AI will likely continue to act as a powerful tool that enhances their work, allowing them to focus on higher-level tasks that require human intuition and insight.

Then I asked why ChatGPT will be able to replace engineers, (just in case it tells you what you want it to), which was in my view even less encouraging for the enthusiasts, especially the "key limitations" bit:

The idea that ChatGPT or AI in general could replace engineers has been a topic of debate and discussion. While AI can enhance or augment engineering work, the idea of fully replacing engineers is complex and depends on several factors. Here are some reasons why AI like ChatGPT might assist but not entirely replace engineers, as well as some areas where it could take on certain tasks:

1. Automation of Repetitive Tasks:

How ChatGPT Can Assist: AI can automate many repetitive, mundane tasks that engineers perform, such as generating boilerplate code, debugging simple issues, or conducting basic analysis. ChatGPT can help with tasks like code refactoring, documentation generation, or suggesting architectural patterns.

Why Engineers Won’t Be Fully Replaced: While automation can save time, many engineering tasks require creativity, problem-solving, and judgment that goes beyond automation. Complex system designs, innovative solutions, and understanding of context are areas where engineers excel, and these qualities are difficult to automate entirely.

2. Rapid Prototyping & Conceptual Design:

How ChatGPT Can Assist: AI tools can help engineers quickly prototype ideas, generate code snippets, or design initial models for a solution. For instance, a prompt could generate an app’s structure or offer suggestions for a product design.

Why Engineers Won’t Be Fully Replaced: Engineers are responsible for validating these designs, considering constraints (such as cost, resources, and scalability), and refining ideas based on feedback and evolving requirements. AI may not always understand these constraints at the same level of depth or nuance, which limits its effectiveness in fully replacing engineers.

3. Data Processing and Analysis:

How ChatGPT Can Assist: AI models are excellent at processing large amounts of data quickly, identifying patterns, and making predictions. Engineers working in fields like data science, machine learning, or simulations may find AI extremely helpful for processing and analyzing data.

Why Engineers Won’t Be Fully Replaced: Engineers provide the expertise to interpret these results, ensuring they align with the intended goals and ethical standards. They also tailor AI models to specific problems, a task that requires human insight and domain-specific knowledge.

4. Knowledge Assistance and Troubleshooting:

How ChatGPT Can Assist: ChatGPT can provide real-time information, troubleshoot code issues, and offer solutions to engineering problems by pulling from vast amounts of knowledge. It can help with common errors, give advice on best practices, and even suggest performance optimizations.

Why Engineers Won’t Be Fully Replaced: While AI can provide assistance, it’s not infallible. Engineers need to apply their critical thinking and contextual understanding to evaluate AI-generated suggestions. They must also handle edge cases, unexpected challenges, and system-level considerations that AI might miss or misinterpret.

5. Collaborative Design and Problem-Solving:

How ChatGPT Can Assist: AI can support collaboration by offering ideas and solutions in brainstorming sessions or providing various options for system designs. It can enhance problem-solving by simulating potential outcomes or predicting system behavior based on inputs.

Why Engineers Won’t Be Fully Replaced: Engineering often involves collaboration between multiple stakeholders, balancing technical, business, and user concerns. This requires emotional intelligence, negotiation, and the ability to work with teams and clients—skills that AI doesn’t possess.

6. Evolution of Tools and Complexity of Systems:

How ChatGPT Can Assist: AI can help engineers stay up to date with the latest tools, technologies, and methodologies. It can assist in complex system development, offering support with tools and frameworks that require deep technical expertise.

Why Engineers Won’t Be Fully Replaced: Systems are becoming more complex, and engineers must have a broad understanding of both legacy and cutting-edge technology to build, integrate, and maintain these systems. AI might help with learning curves but can’t replace the deep, integrated understanding engineers have of system architecture and the human factors involved in developing robust systems.

7. Ethical and Regulatory Considerations:

How ChatGPT Can Assist: AI can help engineers by flagging potential ethical or legal issues during the development process, such as bias in machine learning models or security vulnerabilities in software systems.

Why Engineers Won’t Be Fully Replaced: Ultimately, humans are responsible for making judgment calls regarding ethical, legal, and regulatory concerns. Engineers play a key role in ensuring compliance with regulations, making responsible design decisions, and balancing innovation with safety, which cannot be fully outsourced to AI.

Key Limitations of AI in Replacing Engineers

Creativity & Innovation: AI lacks the innate ability to come up with truly original ideas, innovate from scratch, or understand the broad context of many problems, especially in complex, real-world scenarios.

Contextual Understanding: Engineers are often required to deeply understand the specific needs of a project, users, and business goals. AI, while it can be trained on vast data sets, lacks this deeper, nuanced understanding.

Responsibility & Accountability: Engineering projects, particularly in areas like civil engineering or healthcare technology, involve serious safety concerns. Humans must take responsibility for the consequences of engineering decisions, something AI cannot do.

Soft Skills: Communication, leadership, collaboration, and negotiation are essential aspects of engineering. While AI can assist with technical tasks, these interpersonal skills are human-centric and irreplaceable.

Conclusion: AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement

AI like ChatGPT will likely act as a powerful tool for engineers, automating routine tasks, offering insights, and boosting productivity. However, fully replacing engineers is highly unlikely because of the need for human judgment, creativity, ethical decision-making, and complex problem-solving skills. Instead of thinking about AI replacing engineers, it's more realistic to see AI as a way to enhance the capabilities of engineers, making them more efficient and freeing them to focus on higher-level strategic work.

Great plagiarizing job, ChatGPT! Also great gender stereotyping. Did I say "male engineer" when I asked you to produce the graphic? Did you notice the apostrophe error it made in the pic, BTW? And how verbose it is?