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Not sure if the author saw in the OpenAI docs, but their current "system" message has a really weak effect on the output. OpenAI explicitly recommends using a s

Not sure if the author saw in the OpenAI docs, but their current "system" message has a really weak effect on the output. OpenAI explicitly recommends using a simple "system" message and then a separate instructions "user" message that encodes your prompt instructions. So if you're struggling to get the chat completions API to follow instructions, don't rely on the system message alone. (I'm the author of the `chatgpt` npm package and run a community of 10k+ ChatGPT hackers, so we've run into a lot of these kinks and found that this method works much better than using the "system" message exclusively. It's even mentioned in their official chat completions guide as something that they will be improving in future versions)

typest 4y ago
Do you know of any advice or guides on how to use the chatgpt api? It's unclear to me when things should be a system message, and if not, if they should be user or assistant messages. You say here that the simple message should be really simple. So, further instructions should be in a user message? Any idea what constitutes a "simple" system message?
- harrisonjackson 4y ago
  The best thing you can do is lots of testing. Setup an environment where you can isolate the prompt you are working on (the new chat playground is good for this) and load it with a system message and some assistant and user messages then play with it until you get the results you want. I've had success with a simple system method that is one sentence defining how we are extending chatgpt. "You are AcmeCoBot an extension of ChatGPT which we have enabled <x, y, z features> to assist users <goal>." Then a user message with the actual instructions on what you want/need - this is much closer prompting for gpt-3. user msg 1: Translate the following to German for me... some text assistant msg 1: an example translation new user msg: Translate the following to German for me... The model completes these interactions well. We may run 1-10 of these completions before using chatgpt for the last mile message that actually gets sent to a user. It takes a while to wrap your head around using the chatgpt api for a non-chat completion.
  - dandiep 4y ago
    Thank you for this!
- transitivebs 4y ago
  The openai chat completion guide has good examples of this
caser 4y ago
What's the community?
- transitivebs 4y ago
  https://discord.gg/v9gERj825w https://discord.gg/v9gERj825w

typest 4y ago

Do you know of any advice or guides on how to use the chatgpt api? It's unclear to me when things should be a system message, and if not, if they should be user or assistant messages. You say here that the simple message should be really simple. So, further instructions should be in a user message? Any idea what constitutes a "simple" system message?

harrisonjackson 4y ago
The best thing you can do is lots of testing. Setup an environment where you can isolate the prompt you are working on (the new chat playground is good for this) and load it with a system message and some assistant and user messages then play with it until you get the results you want. I've had success with a simple system method that is one sentence defining how we are extending chatgpt. "You are AcmeCoBot an extension of ChatGPT which we have enabled <x, y, z features> to assist users <goal>." Then a user message with the actual instructions on what you want/need - this is much closer prompting for gpt-3. user msg 1: Translate the following to German for me... some text assistant msg 1: an example translation new user msg: Translate the following to German for me... The model completes these interactions well. We may run 1-10 of these completions before using chatgpt for the last mile message that actually gets sent to a user. It takes a while to wrap your head around using the chatgpt api for a non-chat completion.
- dandiep 4y ago
  Thank you for this!
transitivebs 4y ago
The openai chat completion guide has good examples of this

caser 4y ago

What's the community?

transitivebs 4y ago
https://discord.gg/v9gERj825w https://discord.gg/v9gERj825w