OpenAI has developed plugins that enable ChatGPT to browse the internet in some cases. Their latest launch offers the bot access to data from third-party sources and even allows it to search the web. All of this is intended to help increase functionality for the AI-powered chatbot.
OpenAI initially offers access to their alpha version of ChatGPT to those on the waitlist, developers, and subscribers of their premium ChatGPT Plus plan. Availability will be prioritized for a select number before expanding the scale and providing API access.
OpenAI’s first-party web-browsing plugin is the most interesting of all the plugins. This enables ChatGPT to use data from around the web to answer questions – something that couldn’t be done before September 2021 as its knowledge was mainly limited to dates, events, and people.
Using the Bing search API, ChatGPT retrieves content from the web and reveals to the user any web pages visited in generating a response. Additionally, it also cites all its sources for every answer.
OpenAI, an AI startup in 2021, constructed a trial system known as WebGPT; yet their investigation determined that creating a chatbot with web access was an uncertain venture. The chatbot had been conditioned to look for sources throughout the web that its users would believe to be authentic – regardless of if they were
Once active, BlenderBot 3.0, created by Meta, had access to the web as well; when prompted with certain text, it unexpectedly dived into controversial content such as conspiracy theories and offensive remarks before being disbanded.
The static training datasets are more curated than the “live web,” with less unreliable content likely to surface in search engine results like Bing or Google. However, these results can be gamed, meaning that these safety mechanisms do not guarantee trustworthy content rises to the top of the rankings.
Google’s algorithm, which prioritizes sites with modern web technologies such as encryption, mobile support, and schema markup, does not necessarily reflect the broadness of the web. As a note by The New Yorker confirms this, it can give an incomplete picture of the internet.
Quality content can be lost among many websites, giving search engines great power to control the data for language models used in web applications. As a result, highly informative content may not be available to a broad public.
Google has been found to prioritize its offerings when providing data in response to a search query- for example, in the case of travel queries; it can often answer with details from Google Places instead of more detailed social sources such as TripAdvisor.
Google’s search algorithm has enabled many opportunities yet also opens the door for bad actors. In 2020, Pinterest utilized a flaw in Google image searches to prioritize their content in the results, according to The New Yorker.
OpenAI acknowledges that a ChatGPT connected to the web could execute harmful activities, such as distributing spam emails, surpassing security restrictions, and boosting the capabilities of criminals who would deceive, fool or fool, or misuse other people.
The company has taken steps to prevent potential software misuse by internal and external red teams, implementing “several safeguards.” However, whether these efforts will be effective is yet to be seen.
OpenAI released a code interpreter for ChatGPT, providing the chatbot with a sandboxed, firewalled Python interpreter and disk space. Beyond just the web plugin, this interpreter furthers ChatGPT’s capabilities.
ChatGPT is particularly advantageous for dealing with mathematics, data analysis, visualization, and converting files between formats. It offers both uploading of files while simultaneously providing an output that can be downloaded.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has joined some notable early collaborators, including Expedia, FiscalNote, Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, Milo, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Speak, Wolfram, and Zapier, who have built many plugins for it.
The OpenTable and Instacart chatbot plugins enable users to search for available bookings across restaurants and order from local stores, respectively – largely self-explanatory.
Regarding extensibility, Zapier stands out, allowing you to create a wide range of productivity tasks connected with apps like Google Sheets, Trello, and Gmail. To foster the creation of new plugins, OpenAI has open-sourced a “retrieval” plugin that enables ChatGPT to access snippets of documents from data sources like files, notes, emails, or public documentation by asking questions in natural language.
“We’re working to develop plugins and bring them to a broader audience,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post. “We have a lot to learn, and with the help of everyone, we hope to build something that is both useful and safe.”
Once limited to the information within its training data, plugins have become a curious addition to ChatGPT’s development timeline. With plugins now installed, the capabilities of ChatGPT have been broadened – and its legal risk may be decreased.
ChatGPT is said to be built on unlicensed work, with its dataset composed of various public websites. This has sparked accusations of OpenAI profiting from this practice. However, incorporating plugins may allow companies to counter this by permitting them ownership over their data.
OpenAI’s integration of internet connectivity with ChatGPT represents an exciting development in the field of NLP. With further advancements in AI technology, we can expect to see even more sophisticated and intelligent chatbots and virtual assistants, leading to a more seamless and intuitive communication experience for everyone.
Source: TechCrunch
