[2301.12127] Could an Artificial-Intelligence agent pass an introductory physics course?

Massive pre-trained language models have garnered attention and controversy
due to their ability to generate human-like responses: attention due to their
frequent indistinguishability from human-generated phraseology and narratives,
and controversy due to the fact that their convincingly presented arguments and
facts are frequently simply false. Just how human-like are these responses when
it comes to dialogues about physics, in particular about the standard content
of introductory physics courses? This study explores that question by having
ChatGTP, the pre-eminent language model in 2023, work through representative
assessment content of an actual calculus-based physics course and grading the
responses in the same way human responses would be graded. As it turns out,
ChatGPT would barely pass this course while exhibiting many of the
preconceptions and errors of a beginning learner.