Opportunities for Large Language Models and Discourse in Engineering
  Design
Jan Göpfert Jann M. Weinand Patrick Kuckertz Detlef Stolten
In recent years, large language models have achieved breakthroughs on a wide
range of benchmarks in natural language processing and continue to increase in
performance. Recently, the advances of large language models have raised
interest outside the natural language processing community and could have a
large impact on daily life. In this paper, we pose the question: How will large
language models and other foundation models shape the future product
development process? We provide the reader with an overview of the subject by
summarizing both recent advances in natural language processing and the use of
information technology in the engineering design process. We argue that
discourse should be regarded as the core of engineering design processes, and
therefore should be represented in a digital artifact. On this basis, we
describe how foundation models such as large language models could contribute
to the design discourse by automating parts thereof that involve creativity and
reasoning, and were previously reserved for humans. We describe how
simulations, experiments, topology optimizations, and other process steps can
be integrated into a machine-actionable, discourse-centric design process.
Finally, we outline the future research that will be necessary for the
implementation of the conceptualized framework.