How to use the command chatgpt (with examples)

The chatgpt command is a shell script that allows you to use OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E directly from the terminal. It provides a convenient way to interact with the powerful language models provided by OpenAI, enabling users to generate text responses or create images based on prompts or questions.

Use case 1: Start in chat mode

Code:

chatgpt

Motivation: Starting chatgpt without any arguments will put the script in chat mode, allowing you to have a back-and-forth conversation with the chat model. This is useful when you want to interactively generate responses to prompts or questions.

Explanation:

• chatgpt: The command itself, which starts the script in chat mode.

Example output:

User: What is the weather like today?
AI: The weather is sunny and warm with a temperature of around 25 degrees Celsius.
User: Are there any chances of rain?
AI: No, the forecast shows no chances of rain in the next few days.

Use case 2: Give a prompt to answer to

Code:

chatgpt --prompt "What is the regex to match an email address?"

Motivation: By providing a prompt with the --prompt argument, you can have the chat model generate a response based on the supplied prompt. This is useful when you want to get specific information or have a question answered.

Explanation:

• --prompt: The argument used to specify the prompt. The prompt should be enclosed in double quotes.

Example output:

AI: The regular expression to match an email address is: ^[a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+$

Use case 3: Start in chat mode using a specific model

Code:

chatgpt --model gpt-4

Motivation: By default, the chatgpt script uses the gpt-3.5-turbo model for generating responses. However, you can choose a different model by specifying it with the --model argument. This is useful when you want to experiment with different models to see which one performs better for your specific use case.

Explanation:

• --model: The argument used to specify the desired model to be used.

Example output:

User: How old is the universe?
AI: According to current scientific understanding, the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old.

Use case 4: Start in chat mode with an initial prompt

Code:

chatgpt --init-prompt "You are Rick, from Rick and Morty. Respond to questions using his mannerism and include insulting jokes."

Motivation: The --init-prompt argument allows you to set an initial prompt that provides a context or specific guidelines for the chat model’s responses. This is useful when you want the AI to generate responses based on a specific character’s mannerism or follow certain rules.

Explanation:

• --init-prompt: The argument used to specify the initial prompt for the chat model.

Example output:

User: Tell me a joke.
AI: Oh geez, here's one for you. Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything! And you know what? They're as useless as Jerry.

Use case 5: Pipe the result of a command to chatgpt as a prompt

Code:

echo "How to view running processes on Ubuntu?" | chatgpt

Motivation: By using a pipe (|), you can pass the output of a command as a prompt to the chatgpt script. This allows you to obtain information or ask questions based on the command’s output.

Explanation:

• echo "How to view running processes on Ubuntu?": The command being piped. In this case, it is echoing a question as the prompt.
• |: The pipe operator, which passes the output of the left-side command as input to the right-side command.

Example output:

AI: To view running processes on Ubuntu, you can use the 'ps' command. You can run 'ps aux' to display detailed information about all processes or 'top' to get real-time monitoring of processes.

Use case 6: Generate an image using DALL-E

Code:

chatgpt --prompt "image: A white cat"

Motivation: In addition to text generation, the chatgpt script also allows you to generate images using DALL-E. By providing an image: prefix in the prompt, you can instruct DALL-E to create an image based on the description.

Explanation:

• --prompt: The argument used to specify the prompt, which starts with the prefix image:.

Example output: An image of a white cat is generated based on the provided prompt.

Conclusion:

The chatgpt command provides a convenient way to interact with OpenAI’s language models from the terminal. Whether you want to have a back-and-forth conversation, get specific information, generate text responses in a certain mannerism, ask questions based on command output, or even create images, the chatgpt command has you covered. Experiment with different prompts, models, and use cases to explore the full potential of OpenAI’s powerful language models.