{"id":1824,"date":"2023-11-15T11:57:04","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T16:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/matlab\/?p=1824"},"modified":"2024-03-12T10:55:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T14:55:48","slug":"using-ai-to-help-write-matlab-code-the-matlab-ai-chat-playground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/matlab\/2023\/11\/15\/using-ai-to-help-write-matlab-code-the-matlab-ai-chat-playground\/","title":{"rendered":"Using AI to help write MATLAB code \u2013 The MATLAB AI Chat Playground"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span><\/div>
Along with almost everyone who works in software development, I\u2019ve recently been exploring how to integrate AI systems in my day-to-day work.<\/span> <\/span>In a MATLAB context, my appetite was whetted by the unofficial <\/span>MatGPT application<\/span><\/a> developed by friend and colleague Toshi Takeuchi but it wasn\u2019t long before I wanted more. Then, the deep learning team released <\/span>an open-source LLMs to MATLAB project on GitHub.<\/span><\/a><\/div>
For the last few months I\u2019ve been an internal beta tester of the <\/span>MATLAB AI Chat Playground<\/span><\/a> that was <\/span>released to the public last week<\/span><\/a>. It has been an interesting experience and I thought that I\u2019d share some of the mental stages I went through while working with it.<\/span><\/div>

Stage 1: I hate it and I can\u2019t trust it.<\/span><\/h2>
During a casual one on one with Hans Scharler, he introduced an early prototype to me with very little fanfare. \u201cWhat do you think of this?\u201d.<\/span><\/div>
I was working on a project involving clustering at the time and started asking it in-depth questions about the work I was doing.<\/span> <\/span>It did OK on some things but was blatantly making up others.<\/span> <\/span>It produced code that didn\u2019t work using MATLAB functions that didn\u2019t exist and cited papers it made up.<\/span> <\/span>I was not impressed.<\/span><\/div>
\u201c<\/span>I hate it! How could I ever trust it? I can\u2019t see how this would ever be useful to me.\u201d<\/span><\/div>
I spent the rest of the day pinging Hans with other mistakes the AI had made.<\/span> <\/span>Honestly, it\u2019s a wonder we are still friends. <\/span><\/div>

Stage 2: Well\u2026this is kind of fun! <\/span><\/h2>
Development on the project continued and Hans didn\u2019t bring it up with me again until he gave an internal demo at yet another casual drop-in meeting we have at MathWorks for anyone vaguely interested in generative AI.<\/span> <\/span>I wasn\u2019t even in the meeting, but I was getting messages from the meeting chat and someone posted a code snippet that got my interest.<\/span> <\/span><\/div>
I jumped into the meeting and started playing with the latest version of the app.<\/span> <\/span>This time I approached it with a totally different mindset.<\/span> <\/span>Simple curiosity about what it could and couldn\u2019t do and, this time, I was enchanted. <\/span><\/div>
Here\u2019s one of my early queries from back then. It's a screenshot so you won't be able to copy and paste the code I'm afraid<\/span><\/div>
\"Picture1h.png\"<\/img><\/div>
Run that code and you get exactly what I had in mind<\/span><\/div>
\"Picture2.png\"<\/img><\/div>
I then asked it to draw me a picture of a cat. The answer was a little too literal! <\/span><\/div>
img = imread(<\/span>'cat.jpg'<\/span>)<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
imshow(img)<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>
So, I tried again<\/span><\/div>
\"\"<\/img><\/div>
% Draw the head<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [0.5 1 2 2], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
hold <\/span>on<\/span>;<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the ears<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [0.5 2.5 0.5 0.5], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [2 2.5 0.5 0.5], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the eyes<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [1 1.5 0.5 0.5], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'w'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [2 1.5 0.5 0.5], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'w'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the pupils<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [1.25 1.75 0.1 0.1], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [2.25 1.75 0.1 0.1], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the nose<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
line([1.75 2.25], [1.75 1.75], <\/span>'LineWidth'<\/span>, 2, <\/span>'Color'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
line([1.75 1.75], [1.75 1.5], <\/span>'LineWidth'<\/span>, 2, <\/span>'Color'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the mouth<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
line([1.5 2], [1.25 1.25], <\/span>'LineWidth'<\/span>, 2, <\/span>'Color'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
hold <\/span>off<\/span><\/span><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
I see where it\u2019s going but there are some obvious mistakes. The eyes are too low down and the mouth is in the wrong place. Let's ask the AI to fix it<\/span><\/div>
\"\"<\/img><\/div>
figure<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
% Draw the head<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [0.5 1 2 2], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
hold <\/span>on<\/span>;<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the ears<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [0.5 2.5 0.5 0.5], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [2 2.5 0.5 0.5], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the eyes<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [1 1.75 0.5 0.5], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'w'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [2 1.75 0.5 0.5], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'w'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the pupils<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [1.25 1.95 0.1 0.1], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
rectangle(<\/span>'Position'<\/span>, [2.25 1.95 0.1 0.1], <\/span>'Curvature'<\/span>, [1 1], <\/span>'FaceColor'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the nose<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
line([1.75 2.25], [1.75 1.75], <\/span>'LineWidth'<\/span>, 2, <\/span>'Color'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
line([1.75 1.75], [1.75 1.5], <\/span>'LineWidth'<\/span>, 2, <\/span>'Color'<\/span>, <\/span>'k'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
 <\/div><\/div>
% Draw the mouth<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
line([1.5 2], [1.35 1.35], <\/span>'LineWidth'<\/span>, 2, <\/span>'Color'<\/span>, <\/span>'w'<\/span>);<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
hold <\/span>off<\/span><\/span><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
It\u2019s not going to win any awards but it is starting to <\/span>head <\/span>in the right direction! See what I did there.<\/span><\/div>
This is a totally different way of programming and I\u2019ve disappeared down several such rabbit-holes since my early cat-pictures.<\/span> <\/span>I have a half-finished MATLAB implementation of space-invaders somewhere that was written in collaboration with AI. Writing it was more fun than I like to admit to! <\/span><\/div>

Stage 3: Getting practice by using AI in low-stakes situations<\/span><\/h2>
Becoming proficient in any technology takes practice and AI is no different. One place I\u2019ve been using it this week is in the new <\/span>MATLAB Flipbook Mini Hack<\/span><\/a> Contest<\/span>.<\/span> <\/span>Many of <\/span>my entries<\/span><\/a> were made with a little (sometimes a lot) of help from AI. <\/span><\/div>
For example, consider <\/span>Adam Danz\u2019s entry \u2018Tumbling triangles\u2019<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/div>
\"Picture1.gif\"<\/img><\/div>
I fed Adam\u2019s code to the AI and asked it to help me figure out how to make the triangles multicolored.<\/span><\/div>
It didn\u2019t actually manage to write the code for me in this case, but it did help me figure out what I needed to do to get where I wanted.<\/span> <\/span>It very much felt like a partnership.<\/span> <\/span>Here\u2019s the result<\/span><\/a><\/div>
\"Picture2.gif\"<\/img><\/div>
<\/span>I also took my cat obsession to the next level with this - ChatGPT Kitty.<\/a><\/span><\/div>
\"Picture3.gif\"<\/img><\/div>
Why I didn\u2019t call it CatGPT is beyond me?! <\/span><\/div>

Stage 4: Using AI for real work<\/span><\/h2>
I\u2019ve still not fully made it to Stage 4 yet although I have started to leverage AI for real work here and there.<\/span> <\/span>I\u2019ve used AI to help me vectorise loops, for example.<\/span> <\/span>I\u2019ve also used it to suggest ways to analyze data, help me fix bugs in my own code, or suggest starting points for demonstrations I want to write.<\/span><\/div>
As I continue to play around, I feel my confidence growing just as AI itself is improving.<\/span> <\/span>It\u2019s worth bearing in mind that the AI we have today is the most rudimentary version of it we\u2019ll ever see. It has improved quite a lot since ChatGPT was introduced late last year.<\/span><\/div>

Over to you <\/span><\/h2>
Which stage in your AI journey are you?<\/span> <\/span>Have you played around with the <\/span>MATLAB AI Chat Playground<\/span><\/a>?<\/span> <\/span>Maybe you\u2019ve used another AI system to help you write code?<\/span> <\/span>How have you used it? What do you think?<\/span><\/div>
<\/span><\/div>
<\/div>\r\n<\/div>