Artificial intelligence programs, such as chatGPT, are deeply affecting the way that we, as engineers and scientists, write. For instance, many people are using these programs to edit documents, removing grammatical errors, cutting unnecessary words, and making stronger connections between sentences.
Although AI programs can assist you in your writing, as an engineering or science student, it is still important to learn how to write. One reason is that AI programs can be imprecise. For example, chatGPT is notorious for hallucinations, selecting convenient but incorrect details to fill in the gaps of documents. Being precise is crucial in scientific writing, and you cannot afford such imprecision. At the very least, you should proofread any document drafted or edited by an AI program before releasing it for review or publication.
Another reason to learn to write is that AI programs struggle to communicate new ideas and designs. For instance, chatGPT is a poor choice to draft a section that presents new data from an experiment or a decision matrix for a new design. Such sections require your guidance to create illustrations for the data and to assess the relative importance of the details in the accompanying text. Moreover, your hand as a writer is needed to tailor the argument to specific audiences.
Yet another reason to learn to write is that in your career, there will be many occasions where artificial intelligence programs are not allowed. Many companies, laboratories, and agencies forbid the use of such programs for certain types of documents. Furthermore, for documents that are viewed by outside readers, institutions fear that the imprecision of AI programs could damage their reputation.
One final reason to learn to write is to increase your value as an engineer or scientist. If the quality of your writing is only at the level of chatGPT, how will you distinguish yourself from the thousands of engineers and scientists who are also using chatGPT? How will your proposals stand out and be competitive against those who write more precise sentences, incorporate more effective illustrations, and better emphasize the most important ideas?
Artificial intelligence programs are undoubtedly important writing tools for engineers and scientists. However, they are just that - tools. Just as researchers learn the principles of fluid mechanics before using a program to model the dynamics of a fluid flow, you should learn scientific writing principles before using chatGPT to produce a professional document.
