What you need to know
- The ChatGPT Plus membership has a new "GPTs" feature, which can be custom-made for specific use cases.
- Examples include a tech advisor, a laundry buddy, or a sous chef.
- Creating one is as easy as starting a conversation and giving it instructions and knowledge.
- Pick what it can do, like searching the web, making images, or analyzing data.
ChatGPT Plus, with its latest update, introduced an innovative feature to its membership: the capability to generate tailor-made GPTs, serving as customized chatbots designed for specific purposes. The feature allows you to make these GPTs by just giving ChatGPT instructions and knowledge and setting parameters for it, like if it is allowed to search the web for answers or if it has to stick to only data provided by you.
I can think of quite a few ways to use it. Imagine inputting the entire Lord of the Rings books and the Silmarillion and other officially published works by Tolkien and his son all about the history, myths, and lore of Middle-Earth. Then you could ask that Chatbot anything you wanted to know about LOTR or ask it to write a short story in the universe that is lore-accurate.
Another way that a custom GPT could be useful is if a company took its entire Standard Operating Procedures/Knowledge Base articles and input them into a bespoke GPT. Then, if an employee needs to know what to do in any given situation, they could get instructions from the GPT rather than searching through hundreds of articles.
It would be like having your own personal training department always available to help new hires or when rolling out new processes. Plus, the training department could remove old information and update new to keep the GPT up to date with current guidelines and procedures.
How do you create GPTs?
If you want to get started making a custom GPT, you will need to sign up for a ChatGPT Plus membership, which you can do on the ChatGPT site. It costs a pretty hefty $20 per month, but if you want to try it, you can cancel it later. I don't feel like ChatGPT has done a great job explaining how you make a GPT on their website. Supposedly, you can create one just by giving natural instructions to ChatGPT.
You can choose from hundreds of GPTs that are customized for a single purpose—Creative Writing, Marathon Training, Trip Planning, or Math Tutoring. Building a GPT doesn’t require any code, so you can create one for almost anything with simple instructions.
ChatGPT.com
While their site doesn't have a great explanation of how to make a GPT, in the OpenAI DevDay Opening Keynote, the company goes through a live demo of how to make a custom GPT. Give this video a watch. It demos the promise to build with natural language. ChatGPT now has a built-in GPT feature called "GPT Builder."
The demo shows a GPT being created to help a startup founder think through their business ideas and get advice, but it takes a turn as the chatbot is then supposed to grill the founder about why the company is not growing faster.
The demo starts a little after 26 minutes into the video, and it explains the premise of GPTs well. In a room that wasn't extremely lively, this demo received enthusiastic applause.
How do you use GPTs?
I can see many use cases for this technology, especially in the creative space. With the recent announcements by gaming publishers like Xbox teaming with Inworld for AI solutions to video game development, imagine creating a bespoke GPT that is trained and taught to only speak in high fantasy English, or better yet, is trained in Elven and can generate Elven voice acting audio for voice actors with subtitles in English as the same time.
This isn't that farfetched, as we reported that the recently released Galatic Civilization IV: Supernova used over 8 hours of AI audio to take the voice of the voice actors. You can also use AI to translate voice actors' voices to another language, for example, Elvish.
Another use case in gaming could be to give a particular voice to the GPT. Imagine GTA6 having GPT-enabled NPCs that can converse with you about anything. It would be like playing on a role-playing server but in a single-player scenario.
The issue is, though, that GTA has a particular conversational style and uses slang and other unique elements of the English language, like accents and, to be honest, profanity that the average chatbot would probably have a hard time emulating. But, if Rockstar could make a custom GPT that they could custom-tailor with all of their written dialogue and script so far so that it could understand the tone and voice of the GTA 6 universe, it could bring a level of immersion only ever dreamed of before.
Are you thinking of signing up to ChatGPT Plus to try out GPTs? Do you have any awesome ideas for a GPT? Let us know in the comments.
