In the field of computational materials science, the newly emerged ChatGPT tool is receiving a lot of attention. According to Zijian Hong, professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University in China and paper author, ChatGPT is a “very impressive” tool. As a computational materials scientist, Hong is always eager to try out new types of computer science and AI tools. Since the release of ChatGPT, he wondered if such a tool would be beneficial to the field.
To test out the capability of the ChatGPT, Hong examined the three major steps of a computational materials task – building the model or structure, coding for the specific scientific software, and programming for data visualization. He reports that ChatGPT can help to create scripts for building an atomic structure, such as with the cif file, scripts for running a DFT equation and scripting for data visualization.
Surprisingly, ChatGPT was able to evolve and learn from communication. Hong found that when accessing the tool 20 days later, the output was different and more accurate. Furthermore, if more hints were given, such as the correct lattice structure, ChatGPT could independently correct the information – suggesting an intelligence like that of a human. However, Hong admits that the tool is still not perfect and has some drawbacks – making simple mistakes, not providing consistent output, and raising ethical questions.
Despite these concerns, Hong believes that a technological revolution is quickly approaching in computational materials science and encourages scientists to embrace it. His work has been supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and a startup fund from Zhejiang University.
Accounting for the mentioned company, Zhejiang University is one of the oldest and largest universities in China. As a top-notch center for research, the school of material science and engineering is a leading international research center specializing in the fields of material sciences, chemical engineering and technology.
Zijian Hong, the paper author, is an accomplished professor in the field of Material Science and Engineering at Zhejiang University. He has authored numerous pieces in his field, of which his evaluation of ChatGPT is the most recent. Through his assessment and research, Hong has further nuanced our understanding of ChatGPT’s capabilities.
