GPT-3: Transforming Life & Work with Intelligent NLP Applications

May 15, 2023

What is GPT-3?

GPT-3, developed by OpenAI, is a natural language processing model based on the Transformer architecture, and was released in May 2020. As the largest version in the GPT series, GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters. Thanks to its massive scale, GPT-3 performs excellently on various natural language processing tasks, such as text generation, translation, question answering, and summarization. GPT-3 is trained using a self-supervised learning method. During training, GPT-3 learns to predict the next word in a text sequence, while modeling a vast amount of text data, including articles, books, and web pages on the internet. Through this method, GPT-3 can learn rich language knowledge and various contexts.

However, GPT-3 also has some limitations. First, the huge model size results in very high computational and storage requirements, which poses challenges to the deployment and use of GPT-3. Additionally, GPT-3 may sometimes generate inaccurate or false information, especially when dealing with the latest events or data. It’s also worth noting that GPT-3 can produce unethical, biased, or offensive content, which needs to be guarded against and handled in application.

How to use GPT-3?

How do ordinary users use GPT-3?

Ordinary users can’t directly access the GPT-3 model. However, OpenAI provides the GPT-3 API, allowing developers and businesses to utilize this technology to develop various applications. These applications enable ordinary users to experience the powerful capabilities of GPT-3.

How can developers here use GPT-3?

Developers can use GPT-3 through OpenAI’s GPT-3 API. To start using the GPT-3 API, you need to follow these steps:

Register an OpenAI account: First, visit the OpenAI official website and register an account. This will give you the opportunity to obtain an API key.
Obtain an API key: After registering an account, apply for GPT-3 API access. If your application is approved, you will receive an API key. This key will allow you to access and use the GPT-3 API.
Read the API documentation: To better understand how to use the GPT-3 API, it is crucial to read the API documentation provided by OpenAI. The documentation contains detailed information about API calls, endpoints, parameter settings, and error handling.
Install SDKs and libraries: Depending on your programming language and development environment, install the appropriate Software Development Kit (SDK) and libraries. For example, if you use Python, you can install the Python library provided by OpenAI.
Write code: Write code to implement your application according to the API documentation and examples. This may include setting parameters, sending requests, handling responses, and displaying results.
Test and debug: During development, ensure that you thoroughly test your application to find potential issues. Also, adjust parameter settings according to actual needs and performance.
Deploy the application: After development is complete, deploy your application to the appropriate platform and environment for users to access and use.

Please note that when using the GPT-3 API, you should comply with OpenAI’s terms of use and policies. Ensure that your application conforms to these regulations, and be mindful of limitations related to API call times, computational resources, and costs. In practical applications, use the API wisely to reduce costs and risks.

OpenAI Playground

The OpenAI Playground is an online platform provided by OpenAI that allows users to directly experience and test their natural language processing models, such as GPT-3. In the Playground, users can input text prompts, and the model will generate corresponding responses or complete specified tasks based on these prompts.

The Playground provides a variety of parameter settings, so that users can adjust the behavior of the model according to actual needs. For example, users can adjust parameters such as the length of the generated text.

GPT-3 Features:

Zero-shot learning: A notable feature of GPT-3 is its zero-shot learning ability. This means that it can perform various NLP tasks without specifically targeted training data for those tasks.
Text generation: GPT-3 can generate coherent and relevant text based on a given input (prompt). This makes it useful for composing articles, stories, poems, etc.
Question-answering system: GPT-3 can answer questions about knowledge contained in its training data. You can ask questions in natural language, and GPT-3 will try to generate a relevant and accurate answer.
Machine translation: GPT-3 can translate text from one language to another. While it may not be as accurate as specialized translation models, it generally provides reliable translation results.
Text summarization: GPT-3 can extract key information from longer texts and generate concise summaries. This is helpful for handling large amounts of information or extracting key viewpoints.
Code generation: GPT-3 can generate simple code based on natural language descriptions. For example, you can ask it to translate a paragraph of English text into HTML or another programming language.

Usage scenario of GPT-3

Chatbots: GPT-3 can serve as an intelligent conversational agent for customer support, tech support, or personal assistant applications. Its ability to understand and generate natural language makes smooth conversations with users possible.
Text generation: GPT-3 can be used to create content such as blog posts, news reports, marketing copy, etc. It can generate coherent text based on a given topic or keywords.
Programming aid: GPT-3 can generate code snippets based on natural language descriptions, helping developers complete programming tasks faster. It can support multiple programming languages including HTML, CSS, Python, etc.
Product description generation: GPT-3 can automatically generate product descriptions based on product features and functionality. This is very useful for product listings on e-commerce websites and online stores.
Educational tutoring: GPT-3 can serve as a learning tool, providing real-time feedback and answering queries. For example, it can answer students’ questions, provide explanations and examples, helping students to better understand concepts.
Content summarization: GPT-3 can extract key information from large amounts of text and generate concise summaries. This is very useful for scenarios such as news aggregation, research literature review, etc.
Language translation: GPT-3 can serve as a multilingual translation tool, translating text from one language to another. While its translation accuracy may not be as high as specialized translation models, it usually provides acceptable translation results.
Creative writing: GPT-3 can help creators generate story plots, character descriptions, and dialogues. It can provide creative inspiration and assist creators in completing novels, scripts, or movie scripts.
Social media management: GPT-3 can help users generate attention-grabbing social media content, such as tweets, Instagram posts, or LinkedIn updates. It can also generate related tags and topics based on a given theme or keywords.

The Impact of GPT-3 on People's Lives and Work Today

GPT-3, as an advanced natural language processing technology, has had a profound impact on people’s lives and work.

Increased productivity: GPT-3 can assist people in many tasks, such as writing code, generating text, answering questions, etc. This helps to improve the productivity of individuals and businesses.
Intelligent services: GPT-3 can be used to develop chatbots, smart assistants, etc. This allows customers to get support at any time, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Innovative educational tools: GPT-3 can serve as an educational tutoring tool, providing real-time feedback and answering queries for students. This helps students better understand concepts and improve learning outcomes.
Content creation: GPT-3 makes content creation more convenient. It can generate coherent articles, stories, or poems based on a given topic or keywords, providing inspiration for creators.
Reducing language barriers: GPT-3 can translate text from one language to another, facilitating cross-language communication. This makes it easier for people to access and understand other cultures and viewpoints.

However, GPT-3 also brings some negative impacts:

Misinformation and inaccuracies: GPT-3 may generate incorrect or inaccurate information. This can lead to misguidance, incorrect decision-making, or misunderstandings about real-world things.
Ethical and bias issues: GPT-3 may generate biased, discriminatory, or offensive content. This could exacerbate social divisions and discrimination.
Fraud and fake information: GPT-3 can be used to create fake news, malicious comments, or fraudulent content. This can negatively impact public opinion, personal reputation, and cybersecurity.
Threat to human jobs: GPT-3 can replace human labor in many areas, such as customer service, writing, programming, etc. This could lead to the reduction or disappearance of certain job positions, affecting the job market.
Privacy and security issues: Since GPT-3’s training data comes from the Internet, the model might indirectly obtain and leak sensitive information. This could lead to privacy and data security issues.

The Price of GPT-3 API

Models	Base models	Babbage	Curie	Davinci
Price	$0.0004 / 1K tokens	$0.0005 / 1K tokens	$0.0020 / 1K tokens	$0.0200 / 1K tokens
Function	Ada Fastest			Most powerful

For more information, please refer to the official description of OpenAI

GPT-3 History

GPT and GPT-2: Before GPT-3, OpenAI released the GPT and GPT-2 models in 2018 and 2019 respectively. These two models laid the groundwork for the development of GPT-3. Both of them adopted a Transformer-based architecture and used self-supervised learning for training.
The release of GPT-3 in May 2020: OpenAI released the GPT-3 model, which has up to 175 billion parameters, making GPT-3 the largest natural language processing model in the world at that time. GPT-3 demonstrated superior performance in various NLP tasks, such as text generation, translation, question answering, and summarization.
Research paper on GPT-3: Along with the release of GPT-3, OpenAI published a paper titled “Language Models are Few-Shot Learners”. This paper provides a detailed introduction to GPT-3’s architecture, training methods, and experimental results, demonstrating GPT-3’s powerful capabilities in various tasks.
GPT-3 API: In June 2020, OpenAI began providing test access to the GPT-3 API for certain developers. This allowed developers to leverage GPT-3 to develop various applications, such as chatbots, text generators, and programming assistance tools.
Expansion of GPT-3 API access: With the successful application of the GPT-3 API, OpenAI gradually expanded API access rights, allowing more developers and businesses to use GPT-3.
On November 30, 2022, OpenAI created a brand new application called ChatGPT, based on a fine-tuned version of their successor to the GPT-3 model, GPT-3.5. It was made available for free for general users and quickly became popular worldwide.
On March 14, 2023, GPT-4 was released. Contrary to previous rumors, it did not feature video input capabilities, and the number of training parameters was not disclosed.