Outta curiosity, who's using AI actively in the shop?!?

[Dh3256]

“Chad Jeept” is going to have to get better at mathematics pretty soon if that’s the case. I’m running into cases where it has a problem handling some basic algebraic comparisons, and I absolutely do not trust it to handle monetary calculations unless they are very simple.

I assume you are using the free version? The paid version is great at math, I have been impressed that it can find and derive advanced engineering equations, solve them correctly, and even infer unknown data with very good estimates.

 

[e015475]

I use the free ChatGPT quite a bit and hit the response limits a couple times a week. Think it might be worth it to upgrade to the paid version.

You have to be a little circumspect with the results. I recently asked a question about a Bosch Hydroboost and got a response detailing information about hydroponics. Just have to keep adding context to get it to dial in.

Just like some knowledge of Boolean logic for simple search engines in days past was helpful, I suspect that there's some better ways to structure a query for AI that will yeild some better results. I need to learn this.

I was troubleshooting a power steering problem with the truck in my avatar with the pump cavitating and it suggested some solutions that seemed at first counter-intuitive to my engineering mind, but upon reading the narritive it provided it seemed to make perfect sense.

I asked it to estimate the temperature rise in the power steering fluid if I increased the flow valve orifice size and it complied with a well organized analysis with the work shown in just a few seconds. I'd of spent a couple hours with a Marks handbook. You do have to read through it and check the assumptions/conclusions to see if they make sense - I've caught it doing some dumb stuff.

I won't generally ask somebody a question unless I kinda know what the answer is. I know pretty quick if they're full of sh*t or I might be able to learn something. AI is kind of the same way and I don't take anything it says as the gospel truth, but it does offer a more diverse perspective and does a reasonable and quick job with a technical analysis if prompted correctly and you need to check the work.

One way it really falls on its face though is if you ask it to provide sources for a particular product or service. About half the time, the sources are no longer in business.

 

[e015475]

Dup

 

[sh944]

I assume you are using the free version? The paid version is great at math, I have been impressed that it can find and derive advanced engineering equations, solve them correctly, and even infer unknown data with very good estimates.

Nope, I use a paid version of Chad. Don’t get me wrong, it is a very useful tool and I like it, but it’s way early in its developmental cycle and it absolutely cannot be trusted as a stand-alone resource for data. It doesn’t recognize numbers as data per se (like a calculator would) and that’s why it gets it wrong enough of the time to have to run check-sum balancing against it for validation.

 

[Dh3256]

Nope, I use a paid version of Chad. Don’t get me wrong, it is a very useful tool and I like it, but it’s way early in its developmental cycle and it absolutely cannot be trusted as a stand-alone resource for data. It doesn’t recognize numbers as data per se (like a calculator would) and that’s why it gets it wrong enough of the time to have to run check-sum balancing against it for validation.

I'm curious what specifically you are calculating and what errors you are finding, that is very different than my experience.

I just learned yesterday that there are effort settings in ChatGPT. I have been using "Auto" which works pretty well, it certainly appears to recognize numbers as data, enough that it can find complex equations in a data sheet, extract them, and correctly calculate the answer. The "Thinking" setting has a charge per use but is even better, and the "Pro" setting is the best and highest cost per use but provides "research grade intelligence".

FWIW, even on the auto setting I have not found any errors in its calculations, even for complex calculus. It's code development capability is amazing. We have been able to delay hiring some additional devs and engineers by using AI, it's pretty impressive.

 

[PugetDude]

I tend to gravitate towards natural stupidity over artificial intelligence in my shop. Seems to work most of the time.

 

[VictoriaMaxwell]

I’ve been leaning on AI mostly for quick prototyping tasks, like helping me sketch airflow models and run rough calculations before I start cutting metal
It sped things up a lot while I was testing a coolant recirculation setup
I even used mvp software development to spin up a stripped‑down monitoring app so I could log temps and contamination levels without overbuilding anything