Interact with OpenAI GPT models

Intro

OpenAI’s GPT models are possibly the most widely used LLM today. Typically, the interaction with the models is via chatting with it inside the OpenAI’s web portal. They also offer an REST API endpoint that you can use to communicate with their LLM’s. chattr is able to send and receive the correct API calls to make the “chatting” experience with the GPT models seamless.

Secret key

OpenAI requires a secret key to authenticate your user. It is required for any application non-OpenAI application, such as chattr, to have one in order to function. A key is a long alphanumeric sequence. The sequence is created in the OpenAI portal.

By default, chattr will look for the secret key inside the a Environment Variable called OPENAI_API_KEY. Other packages that integrate with OpenAI use the same variable name.

Use Sys.setenv() to set the variable. The downside of using this method is that the variable will only be available during the current R session:

Sys.setenv("OPENAI_API_KEY" = "####################")

A preferred method is to save the secret key to the .Renviron file. This way, there is no need to load the environment variable every time you start a new R session. The .Renviron file is available in your home directory. Here is an example of the entry:

OPENAI_API_KEY=####################

Test connection

Use the chattr_test() function to confirm that your connection works:

library(chattr)

chattr_test()
✔ Connection with OpenAI cofirmed
✔ Access to models confirmed

Change the model

By default, chattr is setup to interact with GPT 4 (gpt-4). To switch to 3.5, use:

library(chattr)

chattr_use("gpt35")
#> 
#> ── chattr
#> • Provider: OpenAI - Chat Completions
#> • Path/URL: https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions
#> • Model: gpt-3.5-turbo
#> • Label: GPT 3.5 (OpenAI)

To switch back to GPT 4, run:

chattr_use("gpt4")
#> 
#> ── chattr
#> • Provider: OpenAI - Chat Completions
#> • Path/URL: https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions
#> • Model: gpt-4
#> • Label: GPT 4 (OpenAI)

Data files and data frames

Because it is information about your environment and work space, by default chattr avoids sending any data files, and data frame information to OpenAI. Sending this information is convenient because it creates a shorthand for your requests. If you wish to submit this information as part of your prompts, use chattr_defaults(), for example:

• chattr_defaults(max_data_files = 10)
• chattr_defaults(max_data_frames = 10)

These two commands will send 10 data frames, and 10 data files as part of your prompt. You can decide the number to limit this by. The more you send, the larger your prompt.

If any of these is set to anything but 0, a warning will show up every time you start the Shiny app:

• Provider: Open AI - Chat Completions
• Path/URL: https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions
• Model: gpt-3.5-turbo
! A list of the top 10 files will be sent externally to OpenAI with every request
To avoid this, set the number of files to be sent to 0 using chattr::chattr_defaults(max_data_files = 0)Î