Dear Readers,
Welcome back to this month's Chronicles of a Neurodivergent Programmer. Last month, I took a break from writing about tech and instead shared by thoughts about a type of imposter syndrome surrounding my identity as a disabled person. This time, I would like to share a recent experience building bots without a single line of code!
Up until now, I've had experience using ChatGPT models using the chat interface, created bots using prompt engineering using the Python programmatic interface, and trained my own LLM models using open-source models. Continuing on in my LLM journey, I was given the opportunity to use an open-source LLM app building platform that allows users to make their own chatbots. For previous posts related to LLM have a look at the list below:
- Merry Christimas! ... Also my thoughts about GPT
- Introduction: What are Large Language Models?
- LLM Part 1: Tokenization
- LLM Part 2: Encoding
- LLM Part 3: Decoding
- LLM Project 1: Translating, Summarizing, and Paraphrasing (using T5)
In this revolutionary platform, the simplest bots could be built with just prompt engineering. Let's say that you want to build a summarizing bot. Just write a prompt that reads "You are an expert at summarizing long pieces of text. You will be given a piece of text, so please answer the summary." And... that's it!!! Congratulations, you built a bot that can summarize text!
If you want to make a more complicated bot... you still might not need to write a line of code! There was an additional option to create your own custom bot using a simple drag-and-drop method. You're provided with several types of blocks that each serve their own function. Combine the different blocks you need in a sequence, and you should be able to build the bot you want. For example, if you want to build that only summarises text written in English but not recognize any other language, you can add a divider that can recognize whether the text was written in English or not. If the text was in English, then create a summary, but if the text was in.... let's say Spanish, then return a message saying "Sorry, I only know English."
There are a few other features, including add-ons and writing a few lines of code for detailed specifications, but still this platform makes it much easier for everyone to build their own bots irrespective of their knowledge of LLMs or tech.
Call me old, but I still remember the time the movie "I. Robot." came out. There was a very "human" robot existing among other non-sentient robots with an antagonist that was introduced as a very intelligent AI. With the rise of awareness about generative AI, perhaps we're finally heading to a transitional phase in which mankind is becoming less fearful and more accepting of the existance of AI in society. As such there may be a growing demand for simple AI-based bots to be accessible to the general population.
I look forward to venturing further into the realm of generative AI as well as data science in general to see what the future beholds. I certainly had fun playing speed typing games and learning how to code my first "Hello World." Hopefully there will be a lot of people in the future that will be able to enjoy the fun world of tech!!!
Sincerely,
Lukas Fleur
P.S. If you're interested in me showcasing this platform on this blog, let me know in the comments below!
