Step by Step Auto-GPT in Google Colab: How to Make it Work for You

Dr. Ernesto Lee
7 min readApr 19, 2023

In a world where technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve and harness the power of AI to enhance your personal and professional life. Auto-GPT is an advanced AI tool that can help you do just that.

If you haven’t set up Auto-GPT yet, make sure to follow our previous tutorial on how to get Auto-GPT up and running in Google Colab (https://medium.com/@ernestodotnet/get-autogpt-up-and-running-in-google-colab-in-just-5-minutes-daee68d01858).

In this article, we’ll focus on how to make Auto-GPT work for you. We’ll discuss its unique features, provide use cases, and walk you through an example that demonstrates its full potential.

Key Features and Benefits of Auto-GPT

Auto-GPT is a versatile and powerful AI tool designed to revolutionize the way you access information and solve problems. It boasts several key features and benefits that set it apart from other AI solutions:

Comprehensive Knowledge Base: Auto-GPT has an extensive understanding of various domains and is capable of providing valuable insights across numerous fields, including higher education, cryptocurrency, programming and code, and more.

Independence: One of the standout features of Auto-GPT is its ability to operate independently once you’ve provided it with clear goals and objectives. This means that the AI will work tirelessly in the background to achieve the desired outcomes, without requiring constant human intervention.

Real-time Access to Modern Data: Auto-GPT has an edge over other AI tools in that it is unleashed on the internet, granting it access to the latest, up-to-the-second information. This is a significant advantage over AI solutions like OpenAI, which rely on data up until 2021.

Goal-Driven Problem Solving: Auto-GPT’s unique problem-solving approach involves generating its own prompts based on the objectives and goals you provide. This goal-driven methodology ensures that the AI focuses on the specific tasks at hand and effectively solves problems in alignment with your requirements.

Customizable and Versatile: Auto-GPT can be tailored to various use cases and industries, making it a flexible and valuable tool in numerous contexts.

By leveraging these key features and benefits, Auto-GPT empowers you to unlock new opportunities and streamline your personal and professional life in a way that’s efficient and effective.

Exploring Auto-GPT Use Cases and Examples

Auto-GPT’s versatility, real-time data access, and goal-driven problem-solving make it an ideal tool for a wide range of applications, offering significant advantages over traditional AI solutions like ChatGPT. Here, we explore some of the most common use cases where Auto-GPT can make a difference:

Higher Education: Auto-GPT is an invaluable resource for students and educators alike. It can help you conduct in-depth research on various subjects, write well-structured essays, and even generate customized study materials tailored to your learning needs. By staying up-to-date with the latest academic developments, Auto-GPT provides more current and relevant information than AI tools limited to data from previous years.

Cryptocurrency: Staying ahead in the fast-paced world of cryptocurrency requires access to real-time data and insights. Auto-GPT can keep you updated on the latest market trends, breaking news, and emerging opportunities. By analyzing current information, it can provide tailored investment advice and help you discover new cryptocurrency projects worth exploring.

Programming and Code: Auto-GPT is an invaluable companion for developers, as it can help troubleshoot code issues, generate new code snippets, and even assist in learning new programming languages. By staying updated with the latest coding best practices and trends, Auto-GPT provides more accurate and relevant assistance than AI tools limited to outdated data.

Custom Use Cases: The potential applications of Auto-GPT are virtually endless. It can be a valuable tool in planning events, researching vacation destinations, creating workout routines, generating recipes, and so much more. By working independently and generating its own prompts based on your goals, Auto-GPT offers a level of customization and versatility that goes beyond traditional AI solutions.

Auto-GPT’s flexibility and adaptability make it an indispensable tool for addressing a wide array of tasks, providing advantages that cannot be matched by AI solutions confined to static, outdated data.

Walking Through a Use Case: Creating a Podcast Outline

Let’s dive into an example where we use Auto-GPT to research current events and generate a podcast outline. We’ll walk you through the code provided below, which you can run in Google Colab:

!git clone https://github.com/Significant-Gravitas/Auto-GPT.git -b stable --single-branch 
%cd Auto-GPT/
!pip install -r requirements.txt # you may have to restart your runtime
%cd Auto-GPT/
!cp .env.template env.txt #(edit env.txt and add your keys)
# Stop here and add your keys!
!cp env.txt .env
!python -m autogpt --continuous

Here’s a breakdown of what each line does:

  • %cd Auto-GPT/: Changes the working directory to the Auto-GPT folder.
  • !pip install -r requirements.txt: Installs the necessary dependencies for Auto-GPT.
  • %cd Auto-GPT/: Changes the working directory to the nested Auto-GPT folder.
  • !cp .env.template env.txt: Copies the .env.template file to create a new file called env.txt. Make sure you stop here and update your file with the api keys!
  • !cp env.txt .env: Copies the env.txt file to a hidden .env file, which will store your API keys.
  • !python -m autogpt --continuous: Runs Auto-GPT in continuous mode.

Edit env.txt to include your OpenAI and PineCone and Google Custom Search API keys before running the script. Open AI and Pinecone are pretty straight forward, but these steps here outline how to get your Google Custom Search off the ground: https://medium.com/@ernestodotnet/build-your-own-google-create-a-custom-search-engine-with-trusted-sources-c1c113e845cc

Once the code is running, you can input your goals and objectives for the research task. For instance, you could provide the following:

  • AI Role: Research current events related to AI advancements and Baby AGI.
Goal 1: Find three recent AI breakthroughs in Auto-GPT and Baby AGI.
Goal 2: Identify two emerging trends in Auto-GPT and Baby AGI and document potential uses of this technology
Goal 3: Compile information for a podcast outline.
Goal 4: Conclude when the user has gained sufficient knowledge and confidence in developing an interesting and intuitive podcast outline.
Goal 5:<JUST TYPE ENTER TO LET IT FLY!>

Once it starts, it will kick off a loop where it will attempt to:

  • Provide its “THOUGHTS
  • REASONING : Explanation of the thoughts
  • PLAN of Action : Step by step plan of action
  • CRITICISM : How can I learn from my mistakes if there was an error or improve on my performance if there were no error
  • SPEAK : State intentions
  • NEXT ACTION : Based on the above results, generate a NEW prompt to solve the criticism
  • SYSTEM : Technical Feedback

As the system operates, you may observe numerous errors being generated. These errors are, in fact, a reflection of the AI’s ongoing “thought” process. You are witnessing something remarkable: the computer attempting to think, reason, and problem-solve, with you having a metaphorical window into its “mind”. Such errors are an integral part of the machine’s journey towards finding the right solution (which it most likely will… evenutally).

Auto-GPT will then utilize its unique features, including its access to modern data and goal-driven problem-solving, to generate prompts and perform research based on your input.

Once the research is complete, Auto-GPT will present a podcast outline that incorporates the information gathered. You can then use this outline as a foundation for your podcast episode or make further refinements as necessary.

Conclusion

Auto-GPT is an incredibly powerful AI tool that can help you stay ahead in your personal and professional life. By leveraging its independence, access to modern data, and goal-driven problem-solving capabilities, you can achieve your objectives more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

We hope you find this guide useful in harnessing the full potential of Auto-GPT. If you enjoyed this article, please don’t forget to clap and follow us. For more information and resources, check out https://ernesto.net and https://learningvoyage.com.

Free

Distraction-free reading. No ads.

Organize your knowledge with lists and highlights.

Tell your story. Find your audience.

Membership

Read member-only stories

Support writers you read most

Earn money for your writing

Listen to audio narrations

Read offline with the Medium app

--

--

Responses (2)

What are your thoughts?