[D66] AI: What is Auto-GPT?

[René Oudeweg]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-GPT
https://github.com/Significant-Gravitas/Auto-GPT

Auto-GPT is an "AI agent" that, given a goal in natural language, will 
attempt to achieve it by breaking it into sub-tasks and using the 
internet and other tools in an automatic loop.[1] It uses OpenAI's GPT-4 
or GPT-3.5 APIs,[2] and is among the first examples of an application 
using GPT-4 to perform autonomous tasks.[3]

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techcrunch.com
What is Auto-GPT and why does it matter?
Kyle Wiggers
6–8 minutes

Silicon Valley’s quest to automate everything is unceasing, which 
explains its latest obsession: Auto-GPT.

In essence, Auto-GPT uses the versatility of OpenAI’s latest AI models 
to interact with software and services online, allowing it to 
“autonomously” perform tasks like X and Y. But as we are learning with 
large language models, this capability seems to be as wide as an ocean 
but as deep as a puddle.

Auto-GPT — which you might’ve seen blowing up on social media recently — 
is an open source app created by game developer Toran Bruce Richards 
that uses OpenAI’s text-generating models, mainly GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, to 
act “autonomously.”

There’s no magic in that autonomy. Auto-GPT simply handles follow-ups to 
an initial prompt of OpenAI’s models, both asking and answering them 
until a task is complete.

Auto-GPT, basically, is GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 paired with a companion bot 
that instructs GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 what to do. A user tells Auto-GPT what 
their goal is and the bot, in turn, uses GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 and several 
programs to carry out every step needed to achieve whatever goal they’ve 
set.

What makes Auto-GPT reasonably capable is its ability to interact with 
apps, software and services both online and local, like web browsers and 
word processors. For example, given a prompt like “help me grow my 
flower business,” Auto-GPT can develop a somewhat plausible advertising 
strategy and build a basic website.

     #AutoGPT is the new disruptive kid on the block- It can apply 
#ChatGPT's reasoning to broader, more intricate issues requiring 
planning & multiple steps.

     Still early but very impressive with many health and biomedicine 
applications.

     Just tried #AgentGPT and asked it to… pic.twitter.com/ywFhtjxjYD

     — Daniel Kraft, MD (@daniel_kraft) April 12, 2023

As Joe Koen, a software developer who’s experimented with Auto-GPT, 
explained to TechCrunch via email, Auto-GPT essentially automates 
multi-step projects that would’ve required back-and-forth prompting with 
a chatbot-oriented AI model like, say, OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

“Auto-GPT defines an agent that communicates with OpenAI’s API,” Koen 
said. “This agent’s objective is to carry out a variety of commands that 
the AI generates in response to the agent’s requests. The user is 
prompted for input to specify the AI’s role and objectives prior to the 
agent starting to carry out commands.”

In a terminal, users describe the Auto-GPT agent’s name, role and 
objective and specify up to five ways to achieve that objective. For 
example:

     Name: Smartphone-GPT
     Role: An AI designed to find the best smartphone
     Objective: Find the best smartphones on the market
     Goal 1: Do market research for different smartphones on the market 
today
     Goal 2: Get the top five smartphones and list their pros and cons

Behind the scenes, Auto-GPT relies on features like memory management to 
execute tasks, along with GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 for text generation, file 
storage and summarization.

Auto-GPT can also be hooked up to speech synthesizers, like ElevenLabs’, 
so that it can “place” phone calls, for example.

Auto-GPT is publicly available on GitHub, but it does require some setup 
and know-how to get up and running. To use it, Auto-GPT has to be 
installed in a development environment like Docker, and it must be 
registered with an API key from OpenAI — which requires a paid OpenAI 
account.

It might be worth it — although the jury’s out on that. Early adopters 
have used Auto-GPT to take on the sorts of mundane tasks better 
delegated to a bot. For example, Auto-GPT can field items like debugging 
code and writing an email or more advanced things, like creating a 
business plan for a new startup.

“If Auto-GPT encounters any obstacles or inability to finish the task, 
it’ll develop new prompts to help it navigate the situation and 
determine the appropriate next steps,” Adnan Masood, the chief architect 
at UST, a tech consultancy firm, told TechCrunch in an email. “Large 
language models excel at generating human-like responses, yet rely on 
user prompts and interactions to deliver desired outcomes. In contrast, 
Auto-GPT leverages the advanced capabilities of OpenAI’s API to operate 
independently without user intervention.”

In recent weeks, new apps have emerged to make Auto-GPT even easier to 
use, like AgentGPT and GodMode, which provide a simple interface where 
users can input what they want to accomplish directly on a browser page. 
Note that, like Agent-GPT, both require an API key from OpenAI to unlock 
their full capabilities.

Like any powerful tool, however, Auto-GPT has its limitations — and risks.

     AutoGPT just exceeded PyTorch itself in GitHub stars (74k vs 65k). 
I see AutoGPT as a fun experiment, as the authors point out too. But 
nothing more. Prototypes are not meant to be production-ready. Don't let 
media fool you – most of the "cool demos" are heavily cherry-picked: 🧵 
pic.twitter.com/I44H7BkCqr

     — Jim Fan (@DrJimFan) April 16, 2023

Depending on what objective the tool’s provided, Auto-GPT can behave in 
very… unexpected ways. One Reddit user claims that, given a budget of 
$100 to spend within a server instance, Auto-GPT made a wiki page on 
cats, exploited a flaw in the instance to gain admin-level access and 
took over the Python environment in which it was running — and then 
“killed” itself.

There’s also ChaosGPT, a modified version of Auto-GPT tasked with goals 
like “destroy humanity” and “establish global dominance.” 
Unsurprisingly, ChaosGPT hasn’t come close to bringing about the robot 
apocalypse — but it has tweeted rather unflatteringly about humankind.

Arguably more dangerous than Auto-GPT attempting to “destroy humanity” 
are the unanticipated problems that can crop up in otherwise perfectly 
normal scenarios, though. Because it’s built on OpenAI’s language models 
— models that, like all language models, are prone to inaccuracies — it 
can make errors.

That’s not the only problem. After successfully completing a task, 
Auto-GPT usually doesn’t recall how to perform it for later use, and — 
even when it does — it often won’t remember to use the program. Auto-GPT 
also struggles to effectively break complex tasks into simpler sub-tasks 
and has trouble understanding how different goals overlap.

“Auto-GPT illustrates the power and unknown risks of generative AI,” 
Clara Shih, the CEO of Salesforce’s Service Cloud and an Auto-GPT 
enthusiast, said via email. “For enterprises, it is especially important 
to include a human in the loop approach when developing and using 
generative AI technologies like Auto-GPT.”