How to AI: Create your first GPT

When Sam Altman announced the launch of GPTs at OpenAI's first DevDay event, it sent shockwaves through the developer space. Now, using ChatGPT's most powerful AI model, anyone can build a clone in ChatGPT in minutes.

GPTs are generative pre-trained transformers, of which ChatGPT is one, but the platform now allows anyone to build their own. Introduced with OpenAI's GPT-4, ChatGPT Plus subscribers can create GPTs as part of their monthly plan. However, GPTs are still being rolled out, so some paid users may not have access as of writing.

In this article we will show you how to create your own GPT, and we will show you what you can do.

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Finding GPTs

After logging into ChatGPT, there is a “Browse” option in the upper left corner. At the top of the page is the “Create GPT” option.

Below is a list of GPTs already created by OpenAI that you can try.

After selecting “Create GPT”, the “Create and Configure” screen will appear. From here, ChatGPT will ask questions to retrieve your new chatbot. The most important question you will answer in this tutorial is what kind of chatbot you want to make.

“Hi! I'll help you build a new GPT,” says ChatGPT. “What do you want to do?”

For this example, we asked ChatGPT to create a digital familiar—a spirit typically embodied in an animal and held to serve and protect a person—to help with complex mystical and magical topics. While a furry cat would be ideal, since we're dealing with AI, we're getting a chatbot instead.

The next step will be to give your new chatbot a name. ChatGPT will suggest a name based on your initial input, but you can choose a name or change it later in the configuration settings. For this example, we named our chat space Mr. Crowley after the founder of Thelema and the subject of Ozzy Osbourne's heavy metal song, Aleister Crowley.

When you respond to ChatGPT with your questions, the chatbot will take shape on the right side of the preview pane.

ChatGPT uses the DALL-E 3 integration to create a profile picture for the new GPT, but as the name suggests, users can change this picture.

The next series of questions will set up how your GPT will communicate with you, what topics you will be looking for, and how much detail you want included in the GPT's responses. For this example, we asked ChatGPT to include topics on Thelema, Wicca, Ceremonial Magic, Astrology, and Tarot Cards.

ChatGPT will then ask which sources you want GPT to extract from.

For this example, we told Chat GPT to include classical text and modern interpretations. Thanks to its close relationship with Microsoft, ChatGPT can browse the Internet with its Bing feature. Since he has a history of developing AI, we asked him to suggest links for further reading or to watch videos so we could verify the information he was providing.

We sometimes run into issues with interpretation as we seek to understand the complex topics we know. ChatGPT asks AI to make the best decision about what the meaning should be or if you want to provide an explanation.

In the final step, ChatGPT asks how you want to configure the chatbot's personality and how it should describe itself when responding to you.

Once the personality is defined, your new acquaintance is ready for a spell.

If something doesn't look right, you can change certain settings of ChatGPT and update its name, description and capabilities by selecting “Configure”.

Initializing GPT

Before you can start playing with the new GPT, you need to register your chatbot on OpenAI's platform. Select ‘Save' in the top right corner and select your privacy settings. After selecting Confirm, GPT is ready to go.

So now, let's ask Mr. Crowley a few questions, such as, “What is Thelema?” At OpenAI's Devday, CEO Sam Altman announced that ChatGPT's knowledge base will be extended to 2023, and that Browse with Bing will be included directly in GPT-4, so Mr. Crowley should be able to provide more details.

Next, we asked Mr. Crowley to recommend four books about Aleister Crowley to learn more and provide links to his books on Amazon.com. We did this to prevent Mr. Crowley from thinking about the links to the suggested books. Illusion continues to be a problem for generative AI—in April, ChatGPT wrongly accused American criminal defense attorney and law professor Jonathan Turlin of sexual assault. ChatGPT claimed the information was from The Washington Post, but did not have the article.

Finally, our new chatbot includes Dall-E 3, which allows us to create magical images that we can download and use.

Worried that your GPT might go viral and leave you with a huge bill? Don't do it. When using an AI model such as GPT created on OpenAI's platform, input and output usage tokens are allocated from the user, not the creator.

So, see Mr. Crowley alive there! And these simple steps will help bring your new magical friend to “life”. As with any AI tool, take everything the chatbot tells you with a grain of salt and double-check the information.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.