These custom plugins significantly expand the capabilities of the world's most popular text generator, but you probably won't be able to try them out just yet.
In a Thursday announcement, OpenAI stated that ChatGPT will soon have "eyes and ears." Plugins are about to be released, which will result in a significant expansion of ChatGPT's capabilities.
In addition to third-party plugins, OpenAI will soon have proprietary plugins. If this doesn't sound exciting, consider this: ChatGPT is bad at math because its brain is just a language model. If there was a calculator plugin, it wouldn't have to be bad at math. Existing plugins appear to allow ChatGPT to search the internet for information that is not included in its model, shop, and perform other functions.
There will be an iTunes-style "Plugin Store" where users can obtain (or possibly purchase) third-party plugins. A tantalizing demo video demonstrates how, once plugins are installed, the model can detect the need to use one of the plugins based on the nature of the prompt. OpenAI paints a picture of a world in which you can convert your to-do list into a prompt and plugins can automate both the decision-making and execution of many of your errands in its announcement.
But, no, this world has not yet arrived. You are most likely unable to test ChatGPT plugins at this time.
How to Get Started with ChatGPT Plugins Right Now
ChatGPT plugins are currently only available to developers and insiders in the form of a "limited alpha" release. There is a waitlist page for those who want but do not yet have access. Subscribing to OpenAI's paid service, ChatGPT Plus, may be beneficial, as OpenAI states that it is "prioritizing a small number of developers and ChatGPT Plus users."
What is it like to use the ChatGPT plugins?
Let's face it: if you're a machine learning engineer with access to "limited alpha," you're not reading this article. If you're just a bystander with a passing interest in AI, you might be curious about how plugins will work.
If that describes you and you have about forty minutes, you can't go wrong with this explanation from YouTuber James Briggs. Briggs appears to be speaking to a developer audience here, but even if you don't speak that language, the video is jargon-free and provides a fairly detailed overview of ChatGPT's retrieval plugin, which is already open source and appears to be fairly simple to use.
