If you try to ask chat In terms of current events, you know that a chatbot can only come up with a limited set of answers, if any. This is changing.
On Thursday, AI firm OpenAI announced that it is gradually rolling out ChatGPT plug-ins, in a move that greatly expands the chatbot’s functionality.
The first wave of plug-ins, now available in alpha to select ChatGPT users and developers, allow ChatGPT to take advantage of new sources of live data from the web, including third-party sources such as Expedia, Kayak, and Instacart. This enables ChatGPT to browse the web and perform tasks such as booking flights and even buying groceries, among many others. Prior to this upgrade, ChatGPT was limited to pulling information from its training data, which ran through 2021.
“While not a perfect analogy, plug-ins can be the ‘eyes and ears’ of language models, giving them access to information that is too recent, too personal, or too specific to include,” OpenAI said on its website. in the training data.
For example, ChatGPT can now provide answers to questions about how the box office sales of this year’s Academy Award winners compare to those of other recently released films. This new functionality is offered thanks to a browser plug-in, which shows the sources from which the generative AI service draws information before it issues an answer.
“The plug-ins are still very experimental but we think there’s something really cool about it,” he says. OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman wrote in a tweet Thursday. “It was a much needed feature.”
ChatGPT, which puts a conversational-style interface on top of an artificial intelligence architecture known as the Big Language Model, has been a sensation at the center of the tech world since its debut in November. In the past several months, companies from Google and Microsoft to Adobe, Snapchat and Grammarly have scrambled to demonstrate and unleash similar generative AI capabilities in their own products.
But there are notable flaws in the results produced by services like ChatGPT. OpenAI’s own research has shown that a chatbot with Internet access is a risky prospect. For example, it can tend to cite unreliable sources or, as OpenAI points out, “increase safety challenges through malicious or unintended actions, and increase the capabilities of bad actors who may defraud, mislead, or offend others.”
Proponents of these AI services have been focusing on the benefits.
A video posted to Twitter by OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman on Thursday shows how to use ChatGPT’s Instacart plugin to help with meal planning. The video shows ChatGPT recommending a chickpea salad recipe and then finally adding the ingredients needed to Instacart for purchase with just a few prompts.
We’ve added initial support for ChatGPT plug-ins – a protocol for developers to build tools for ChatGPT, with safety as a core design principle. Posting frequently (starting with a few users and developers) to learn from getting in touch: https://t.co/ySek2oevod pic.twitter.com/S61MTpddOV
– Greg Brockman (gdb) March 23, 2023
A video posted to Expedia’s Twitter account shows how to leverage an Expedia plugin to essentially turn ChatGPT into an AI-powered travel agent, helping travelers book flights and hotels. This is something ChatGPT couldn’t do previously, although it can locate places and generate an itinerary.
“You can install plug-ins to help with a variety of tasks. We’re excited to see what developers create!” Altman wrote on Twitter.
Some initial ChatGPT plugins.
OpenAi/Screenshot by CNET’s Sareena Dayaram
To address the risks in the answers ChatGPT provides to queries, OpenAI said it has implemented safeguards and has limited access to a small group of users and developers to begin with. Interested parties can register on the waiting list here.
Editors’ note: CNET uses an artificial intelligence engine to create some personal finance explanations that are edited and verified by our editors. For more information, see this post.