February 14, 2024
MANILA – If there’s one recent movie character that inspires our vision for the future, it’s Iron Man. Besides his fantastical metal suit, Tony Stark also uses an advanced artificial intelligence named Jarvis that does nearly everything the genius billionaire needs. For example, it can automatically research information and control appliances with simple commands.
OpenAI may turn that bit of science fiction into reality as it’s planning to turn ChatGPT into an AI agent. It will give you the ability to control your devices without using them directly. For instance, you could ask ChatGPT to create your homework. In response, the bot will open your PC browser, research information, write your paper, and print it with your printer.
Let’s see what’s next for the revolutionary AI firm OpenAI and its most famous program ChatGPT. Later, I will show how close we are to having AI agents by discussing similar projects.
How will ChatGPT work as an AI agent?
Gizmodo said The Information first reported on OpenAI’s allegedly upcoming project. The news outlet said the AI firm will build “agent software that will take over your device and complete tasks for you.
The AI assistant would work with multiple computer programs, letting it click, move your cursor, and type. In other words, ChatGPT will use your computer for you instead of using it yourself.
It would transform how everyone uses their computers. Imagine if you could order your computer to write your upcoming presentation.
It would craft slides, add images, and include captions while you wait. Then, you’ll have a PowerPoint slide deck ready for your next meeting.
Also, this AI agent will have web browsing capabilities. As mentioned, it will perform research on your behalf. Gizmodo says it is part of CEO Sam Altman’s goal of turning his chatbot into a “supermart personal assistant.”
He recently launched the GPT Store as an AI agent marketplace. You may purchase AI bots for various purposes from multiple sources. Gizmodo said Altman might have hinted at his latest project at DevDay on November 6, 2023:
“Eventually, you’ll just ask the computer for what you need and it’ll do all of these tasks for you, “ the CEO stated. “These capabilities are often talked about in the AI field as ‘agents.’ The upside of this is going to be tremendous.”
Blockchain news website Cointelegraph warned that AI agents could become a massive privacy risk. After all, using one would require giving ChatGPT and its founder OpenAI control over your devices.
The bot might gain unlimited access to your private information. Worse, others might hack the program to manipulate your gadgets.
Are there other AI agents?
Heriot-Watt University and Alana AI researchers created an AI agent that has a physical body. They combined the Furhat robotic bust and OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 large language model to create Furchat.
Researcher Oliver Lemon explained their robot AI study with Tech Xplore. “We wanted to investigate several aspects of embodied AI for natural interaction with humans,” Lemon stated.
“In particular, we were interested in combining the sort of general ‘open domain’ conversation that you can have with LLMs like ChatGPT with more useful and specific information sources.”
“FurChat combines a large language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT or one of the many open-source alternatives (e.g., LLAMA) with an animated speech-enabled robot,” the researcher added.
“It is the first system that we know of which combines LLMs for both general conversation and specific information sources (e.g., documents about an organization) with automatic expressive robot animations.”
The FurChat conversational agent uses GPT-3.5, the ChatGPT large language model, to generate text responses and facial expressions. Meanwhile, the Furhat AI robot voices those texts.
The researchers tested the bot by installing it at the UK National Robotarium in Scotland. Visitors interacted with the robot to learn more about the facility and its events.