ChatGPT gets plug-ins to collect information from external services

By admin On Mar 24, 2023

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OpenAI is working on plug-ins for ChatGPT, which will allow the AI chatbot to look up information via, for example, Wolfram, Expedia and Slack. The chatbot also gets a browser plugin. Plugins are first tested among a small number of users.

The plugins give ChatGPT access to information beyond the training data used to create the generative AI bot. That data only lasts until 2021, so answers from the chatbot could contain outdated information. writes OpenAI. “Plug-ins can be the eyes and ears of large language models,” writes OpenAI. After user consent, ChatGPT can also perform actions with plugins, such as ordering food or booking flights.

The AI Company recognizes that using plugins and third-party resources may increase the risk of unintended or harmful responses or actions. For example, without security measures, plugins allowed ChatGPT to perform prompt injection, where the plugin provides a different prompt to the language model than the user intended. Plug-ins could also send spam emails or misuse sent information. The use of plug-ins is therefore accompanied by unmentioned security measures and is done in phases to limit any problems.

For example, the browser plug-in allows users to ask who recently won Oscars in which category and whether ChatGPT can turn this into a poem. When searching for sources, users can see which sources have been consulted. OpenAI uses the Bing search engine and the browser can only collect information, so it cannot fill out forms or interact with sites in other ways.

With a code interpreter plugin, users can have the chatbot run Python code in a sandboxed environment, which should enable math problems, data analysis and visualization, and file format conversion. The retrieval plug-in allows users to search the user’s documents again, provided the user grants access to this. For example, through Zapier, this plug-in must be able to handle Gmail and Google Sheets.

The plugins are now being tested with a small group of users, including Plus subscribers. The plug-ins should become more widely available later. Ultimately, developers should also be able to use plugins in their OpenAI implementations, and developers should be able to create plugins for ChatGPT so that ChatGPT can query those resources.