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Does anyone know if there's a difference between a "GPT" and an Assistant created via their Assistant API[1]? There's a lot more fine grained control over the m

Does anyone know if there's a difference between a "GPT" and an Assistant created via their Assistant API[1]? There's a lot more fine grained control over the messages/threads in the Assistant API but that might be it? [1]: https://platform.openai.com/docs/assistants/overview https://platform.openai.com/docs/assistants/overview

minimaxir 3y ago
From my readings, Assistant is more of a raw GPT flow with a touch of a persistent state by keeping conversations to a readable thread. It does allow using the Code Interpreter or File Parsing tools if you need those. The GPTs are more system prompt engineering on top of the existing ChatGPT Plus infrastructure (with its freebies such as DALL-E 3 image generation).
sebastiennight 3y ago
Function calling! I don't think GPTs allow you to do function calling? It's not mentioned in the launch blog post. (it would be a major privacy problem if these were possible in the GPTs) Using the Assistant as an intermediary between user inputs and a bunch of our APIs seems very promising.
- hobofan 3y ago
  You can provide "actions" by exposing an API to a GPT via an OpenAPI spec. The interfaces are almost identical to function calling.
- Someone1234 3y ago
  They do allow you to do custom function calling via Configure -> Add Actions
  - martindbp 3y ago
    Doesn't seem like you can authenticate with a backend except for a GPT-wide api token, which makes this way less useful that it could be. You can basically not fetch or store the user's information outside ChatGPT, or am I missing something?
    - hobofan 3y ago
      I think you are missing the option for OAuth. That should enable what you are looking for. If you have a preexisting OAuth setup, it might be hard to get working though, due to the "API and Auth endpoint have be under the same root domain" requirement. (Source: wasted a few hours today trying to get OAuth working)
    - simonw 3y ago
      There's an OAuth option for Actions in GPTs which looks like it covers this case, but I haven't used it myself yet.
hobofan 3y ago
If evaluated both for a client, and while they are separate products, they are almost identical in feature set. I wouldn't even say that you get "a lot" more control with the Assistant API, as in the end the flow of conversation will still be mainly driven by OpenAI. The main reasons why one would use the Assistant API is deeper integration and control about context initialization. On top of that, as you are responsible for rendering, you can create more seamless experiences and e.g. provide custom visualizations or utilize structured output an a programmatic way. Major downside of the assistant API is that you are also forced to build the UI yourself as well of the backend handling of driving the conversation flow forward via a polling based mechanism. If you want to build something quick without a lot of effort custom GPT + actions via an OpenAPI spec are the way to go in my opinion.
fudged71 3y ago
One interesting difference is that you can attach multiple assistants in the same chat “thread”

minimaxir 3y ago

From my readings, Assistant is more of a raw GPT flow with a touch of a persistent state by keeping conversations to a readable thread. It does allow using the Code Interpreter or File Parsing tools if you need those. The GPTs are more system prompt engineering on top of the existing ChatGPT Plus infrastructure (with its freebies such as DALL-E 3 image generation).

sebastiennight 3y ago

Function calling! I don't think GPTs allow you to do function calling? It's not mentioned in the launch blog post. (it would be a major privacy problem if these were possible in the GPTs) Using the Assistant as an intermediary between user inputs and a bunch of our APIs seems very promising.

hobofan 3y ago
You can provide "actions" by exposing an API to a GPT via an OpenAPI spec. The interfaces are almost identical to function calling.
Someone1234 3y ago
They do allow you to do custom function calling via Configure -> Add Actions
- martindbp 3y ago
  Doesn't seem like you can authenticate with a backend except for a GPT-wide api token, which makes this way less useful that it could be. You can basically not fetch or store the user's information outside ChatGPT, or am I missing something?
  - hobofan 3y ago
    I think you are missing the option for OAuth. That should enable what you are looking for. If you have a preexisting OAuth setup, it might be hard to get working though, due to the "API and Auth endpoint have be under the same root domain" requirement. (Source: wasted a few hours today trying to get OAuth working)
  - simonw 3y ago
    There's an OAuth option for Actions in GPTs which looks like it covers this case, but I haven't used it myself yet.

hobofan 3y ago

If evaluated both for a client, and while they are separate products, they are almost identical in feature set. I wouldn't even say that you get "a lot" more control with the Assistant API, as in the end the flow of conversation will still be mainly driven by OpenAI. The main reasons why one would use the Assistant API is deeper integration and control about context initialization. On top of that, as you are responsible for rendering, you can create more seamless experiences and e.g. provide custom visualizations or utilize structured output an a programmatic way. Major downside of the assistant API is that you are also forced to build the UI yourself as well of the backend handling of driving the conversation flow forward via a polling based mechanism. If you want to build something quick without a lot of effort custom GPT + actions via an OpenAPI spec are the way to go in my opinion.

fudged71 3y ago

One interesting difference is that you can attach multiple assistants in the same chat “thread”