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OpenAI recently introduced a new feature called ‘custom instructions’, aimed at providing users with enhanced control over ChatGPT’s responses. Along with that OpenAI also doubled the number of messages ChatGPT Plus customers can send to GPT-4 to 50 per 3 hours. But, it’s time they start focusing on bettering the ChatGPT Plugin store experience. It’s a hot mess.
Four months back, OpenAI made an exciting release by launching plugins, and a lot of folks, including us, touted it as an iOS App Store event.
Sadly, ChatGPT Plugin store is nowhere near App Store, and lacks ranking, sub categories, and basic organisation to define their specific use cases or verticals. At present, navigating the plugin store reveals just three broad categories – New, Top, and Popular.
Today, there are 500+ plugins available in the store, and god knows what they do. No one has the patience to go through one by one and check which one suits them the best.
On ChatGPT Plugin store users have expressed difficulty in finding the plugins they need due to the lack of a robust search and categorization system. As the number of plugins grows, finding specific functionalities becomes increasingly cumbersome. The absence of user-friendly filters or categories raises questions about the store’s organization and whether improvements are in the pipeline.
Does OpenAI Even Care?
Plugins are powered by third party applications that are not controlled by OpenAI. There is a high chance that you might install a risky plugin putting your personal data in danger.
The availability of support and a feedback mechanism is essential for any marketplace. However, users have faced challenges when seeking help or providing feedback on plugins. The absence of a direct line of communication with developers or ChatGPT’s support team has left users feeling stranded when encountering issues.
Since Plugins are developed by third parties, OpenAI does not directly cross-check their value or usefulness. With a vast number of over 500 plugins available for ChatGPT, manual verification of each one’s utility would be an impractical and time-consuming task. As a result, users may have to rely on their own experiences and feedback from the community to identify the most valuable and effective plugins.
Cuts Developers’ Pockets
Looking from the enterprise developer’s perspective, we are trying to see if they have any benefit. Expedia, one of the first companies to put the ChatGPT plugin in store has a huge user base in the Apple Store. Also, they recently integrated this ChaGPT plugin into their app.
While creating plugins on ChatGPT via API is indeed free, developers often find it challenging to manage the token count. If you have a business website and wish to integrate the ChatGPT Plugin onto it, you should be aware that the cost will increase with the number of tokens entered by users.
The token counting is inherent to the nature of using language models like GPT-3.5, and it is independent of the platform where the plugin is integrated (whether it’s a website or a mobile app). Every interaction with the language model, whether it’s through a website, an app, or any other interface, consumes tokens, and developers will be billed based on the total number of tokens used.
Only big companies with deep pockets can afford to pay such a huge amount to OpenAI. The question here arises if enterprises who are working on a small scale can afford to pay?
For a slightly complex use case, monthly inference cost for a GPT 4 API can be anywhere between $ 250,000 to $ 300,000 per month inference cost for a GPT-4 API (having 16K context length) for a complex use case as per AIM research.
Therefore, when using the ChatGPT API, it’s essential to keep track of the token usage and manage it effectively to control costs, just as you would with a website integration. Also the announcement to double the number of messages ChatGPT Plus customers can send and extending support for gpt-3.5-turbo-0301 and gpt-4-0314 models in the OpenAI API until at least June 13, 2024 serves the purpose of OpenAI to make money.
It has to be noted that the ChatGPT Plugin store is still in the beta stage, and there is definitely room for improvements. And ChatGPT plugins category update is the least they can do.
For more feedback on ChatGPT Plugins, click here.
