December 16, 2021 High Agents · 1 min read

WebGPT: OpenAI teaches GPT-3 to browse the web

In one sentence OpenAI presents WebGPT, a GPT-3 trained to use a text browser to answer open questions with cited sources; its best version is preferred over the top-voted Reddit answers 69% of the time.

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OpenAI teaches GPT-3 to use a browser in text mode: it runs searches, opens links, scrolls pages and copies the passages it will use as citations.

The model, WebGPT, first learns by imitating people doing the same task, then gets improved using human judgments of its answers.

Answers come with references to sources, so readers can check them. It is one of the first prototypes of an assistant that searches online before answering.

Companies

OpenAI

Tools

WebGPT