AI vs. Your Best Engineer: A Race You Won’t Believe
We put a top drilling engineer head-to-head with a custom GPT in a digital twin challenge. One took 20 minutes. The other? 12 seconds. The results say a lot about what happens when humans and AI work together — and what happens when they don’t.
USE OF GENERATIVE AI
EXOPS AI
7/14/20251 min read
Imagine a friendly competition: your top field engineer vs. an AI assistant—who completes a complex task faster and with fewer errors? We ran this head-to-head challenge on a drilling simulation to see just how far generative AI has come. Spoiler: the results may surprise you.
The Challenge Setup
We tasked both human and AI to build a basic digital twin of a 5-section drilling riser:
Engineer Workflow:
Export CAD specs
Write 30 lines of Python code using a simulation library
Validate geometry and visualize in 3D viewer
AI Workflow:
Prompt: “Create a digital-twin simulation script for a 5-section drilling riser, using Python and the SimTwin library.”
Receive full script with comments
Copy-paste and run
Real-Time Results
Competitor Time Taken Notes
Engineer 20 minutes Manual debugging and library imports took the bulk of the time
GPT 12 seconds Script was syntax-correct out of the box; required only minor parameter tweaks
Why the GPT Won
Pretrained Knowledge: The model has seen countless code examples, so it knows library usage without googling.
Single Context: No app-switching between IDE and documentation; everything happens in chat.
Reusable Prompts: That 12-second prompt can be saved and re-run in future projects.
Human + AI = Ultimate Productivity
We’re not advocating for replacing engineers—far from it. The ideal workflow is:
Engineer Reviews: Confirm edge cases and add domain-specific checks.
AI Automates Boilerplate: Let the GPT handle repetitive scripts and data formatting.
Combined Efficiency: Engineer spends 90% less time on setup, 100% on problem-solving.
Conclusion
Set up your own “Engineer vs. GPT” test on a high-value task. Share your results using #EXOPSAIChallenge and see how your team’s times compare to ours. And if you need a head start, explore our Custom GPT library for ready-made simulation helpers.
Disclaimer
This simulation was created for illustrative purposes only. While based on realistic workflows, the results are hypothetical and meant to highlight the potential of AI-assisted engineering—not to replace professional judgment or expertise.
Author: EXOPS AI L.L.C.
Connect with us: info@exopsai.io | +1 (833) 396-7724
Explore our Custom GPT Store: https://exopsai.io/artificial-intelligence-gpt-store