Revisiting a Common Cobalt Chloride Equilibrium Experiment with Generative Artificial Intelligence

We have developed and implemented a first-year undergraduate laboratory experiment at St. Bonaventure University that augments a well-established thermodynamics lab on the spectrophotometric determination of the equilibrium of cobalt(II) chloride hexahydrate with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). Students utilized free ChatGPT accounts as a support tool in their analysis of laboratory data and iteratively refined their answers to chemical questions. Overall, the inclusion of GenAI in student workflow did not appear to negatively impact student performance, but there were instances where it struggled to produce correct answers for tasks. Descriptive analysis of student responses, chat logs, and instructor discussions suggests that students were resilient to incorrect GenAI output. This laboratory experiment is designed such that it can be easily adopted by faculty with an interest in exploring the use of GenAI in chemistry curricula.