WHAT ARE GPTs?
OpenAI, ChatGPT, GPT-4, GPT... you almost need an AI assistant to stay on top of the many confusing terms that the AI industry generates.
Just to clear things up: OpenAI is the company that created ChatGPT, the infamous chatbot that’s generated more column inches than Elon Musk over the past year (heck, it’s probably written a fair few of those column inches itself). ChatGPT is partly based on the GPT-4 large language model (LLM), which OpenAI released in 2023. And a GPT is effectively a mini-version of ChatGPT, dedicated to a specific task, such as helping you plan a gap year or how to use a piece of software.
You don’t need any coding skills to create a GPT. They can be created using plain English commands given to ChatGPT. That doesn’t mean there aren’t particular skills and techniques you can apply to getting the best out of them or training them better, as we reveal in our step-by-step guide.
The key with GPTs is thinking of a very specific task that could benefit from AI assistance. It might be helping you to formulate your company’s annual report or buffing your Python 3.12 skills, but the more specific the better.
It’s also worth noting that you can upload files or documents to GPTs to help with their training. Let’s say, for example, you’ve treated yourself to a Canon EOS R50 camera and want to learn how to better use its numerous features and functions. You can upload the PDF of the camera’s official manual to a GPT and then use your AI assistant to guide you when you want to find out how to change the flash settings or activate the self-timer. That means the AI is less reliant on the unreliable information it might otherwise source online.
At a more advanced level, you can even connect a GPT to a third-party service such as Zapier and use it to query other services, such as your Google Calendar.
We haven’t got space in this issue of
APC to go into setting up these quite advanced features here, but it’s something we may return to in a future issue. Zapier has advice on how to set these up at zapier.com/blog/gptassistant.