My experiment with ChatGPT

Introduction

Access GPT-3, which performs a variety of natural language tasks, Codex, which translates natural language to code, and DALL·E, which creates and edits original images.

I had many examinitions in the past. Today I put it in to a somple test for coding.

The tasks

Write MIPS code for calculating a recursive sequence as:

1. \(a_n = a_{n-1} + 2b_{n-2}; \\\) \(b_n = a_{n-1} - b_{n-2}; \\\) with \(a_0 = b_0 = 1\) and \(a_1 = 2, b_1 = 1.\)
2. The code should prompt the user to enter the value of $n$ and display the results in the console. note that you should use recursion with nested procedure linking to implement the code.
3. You should also determine the smallest positive value of $n$ for which your code results in an error and explain the cause of error.

Here are our conversition

# MIPS code to calculate the recursive sequence
# an= an-1 + 2bn-2; bn = an-1 - bn-2, a0=b0=1 and a1 = 2, b1 = 1.

.data
prompt: .asciiz "Enter the value of n: "
result_a: .asciiz "a(n) = "
result_b: .asciiz "b(n) = "

.text
.globl main

main:
# read the value of n
li $v0, 4 # syscall code for print_str
la $a0, prompt # address of prompt
syscall
li $v0, 5 # syscall code for read_int
syscall
move $s0, $v0 # save the value of n in $s0

# call the recursive function to calculate a(n) and b(n)
li $a0, 1 # initial value of a0
li $a1, 2 # initial value of a1
li $t0, 1 # initial value of b0
li $t1, 1 # initial value of b1
jal calc

# print the result
li $v0, 4 # syscall code for print_str
la $a0, result_a # address of result_a
syscall
li $v0, 1 # syscall code for print_int
move $a0, $t2 # value of a(n)
syscall

li $v0, 4 # syscall code for print_str
la $a0, result_b # address of result_b
syscall
li $v0, 1 # syscall code for print_int
move $a0, $t3 # value of b(n)
syscall

# exit the program
li $v0, 10 # syscall code for exit
syscall

calc:
addi $sp, $sp, -8 # allocate space for two more variables
sw $ra, 0($sp) # save return address
sw $s0, 4($sp) # save the value of n

beq $s0, 0, end_a # if n = 0, return a0
beq $s0, 1, end_a # if n = 1, return a1
subi $s0, $s0, 1 # decrement n
move $a0, $a1 # pass a1 as the new a0
move $t0, $t1 # pass b1 as the new b0
jal calc # call the function again
add $t2, $v0, $t0 # calculate a(n) = a(n-1) + 2b(n-2)
sub $t3, $v0, $t0 # calculate b(n) = a(n-1) - b(n-2)
j end

end_a:
move $t2, $a0 # return a0 if n = 0
move $t3, $t0 # return b0 if n = 0

Summary

I have no doubt that GPT3 can definitly write code. My concern is that if I give this task to student, the studetn can simple opy and paste my question to GPT3 and get answer!

For details of GPT3, see OpenAI

Follow @GaryLi

Last updated: 06/02/2023