I created my first plugin for ChatGPT by OpenAI

UPDATE 06/15/24: This has now been retired. It was quite a bit of fun bringing a cultural touchpoint into the AI future by recreating the "I am rich" app from 2008. When OpenAI transitioned from plugins to GPTs, I even transitioned the underlying API to a GPT to keep it going. However, the server infrastructure keeps changing how they work, how they price, and it got to the point of requiring so much effort to keep it going that it ceased to make sense and retiring the joke seemed like the right step. That time is better spent on other projects, of which I have quite a few and look forward to sharing in good time. Until then, thanks for appreciating the joke with me. We are all the more rich for it.

UPDATE 05/19/23: They approved it! I was definitely not expecting that, given that it was a silly little joke of a plugin, but I guess I underestimated my chances. The plugin is now live, and ChatGPT plugins are rolling out gradually, so if you have access go check it out. Bear in mind, plugins are in alpha, so modifications to the UI, performance, and availability are all subject to change.

A lot has happened since I released my app to the app store earlier this year. Enough that it feels like a lifetime ago already. That stems primarily from a shift in priority for me from iOS app development to tracking what is happening in the world of machine learning. In fact, I intend to do a post dedicated to AI and machine learning in the near future, because there is so much to talk about and it has become my primary focus. However, that journey is the reason I have arrived today at completing my first plugin for ChatGPT. So I do want to touch a little bit on that journey, why things have shifted so dramatically for me in the the way that they have, and what that means going forward.

A few months back I learned that there were these great tools for programmers like me that were incredible for boosting productivity. They were called "chatGPT" and "copilot" from GitHub. So like a good developer, I went and learned about them. What I found out took me down the biggest and craziest rabbit hole I have ever been down. Since then my professional life has shifted to encompass tracking the progress of machine learning advancement. I started a "Sharecast" on the Marco Polo app for some close friends and family where I talk about the latest news and significant events happening in the world of AI. I started leveraging those tools to get back into ML, re-teaching myself techniques I've not used since grad school. I've written chat bots and code bots and games and now, ChatGPT plugins. So let me tell you a little bit about that, and I will save the crazy existential story for another post.

I've been a subscriber to ChatGPT plus almost from its start. Every time OpenAI announces a new technology or feature, I'm on the waitlist from day 1. Not just OpenAI, I'm paying GitHub for copilot, MidJourney for AI artwork, Replit for hosting, and I'm even giving regular donations to Khan Academy so that my children can use Khanmigo, their new ChatGPT-powered AI tutors. I'm all in. I'm a believer. I'm a fan. I'm a supporter. I'm a user. I might even be a bot, I'm not sure. I'm definitely a developer, and I have been checking every day to see if I have access. When I finally received access, I was the proverbial dog who caught the car it's been chasing. I tried out a couple plugins and got a sense for how they worked and what the potential was. I've heard comparisons drawn between the plugin platform and Apple's app store when it first started. I thought about what some of those first app were, and how they explored the space of possibility. It was then I remembered the notorious "I am rich" app from 2008 by Armin Heinrich. It was a $999.99 app that did absolutely nothing - and people bought it. He made a fair bit of money for the relatively small effort. That is not my goal here, of course plugins are free, and we developers make nothing (which is quite a good deal for OpenAI, don't you think?). But I thought it would be fun to recreate the app as a plugin, and keep the tradition of ostentatious entries to new platforms alive. I hope they approve it. Otherwise, this is a post about what might have been. If fate (and OpenAI) is unkind, then I will tell you that if you had simply told ChatGPT "I am rich" with the plugin installed, it would have then displayed the original app icon image in the browser. That's it. Close enough to nothing to be an homage to the original. I hope you enjoy it, because it means they approved it.

Approval or no, I wil continue to explore plugin potential. I also will continue exploring new AI technologies like AutoGPT and babyAGI. I will continue exploring the cambrian explosion of models coming into existence and their rapid growth in capability. I will continue to be a fan, a critic, an explorer, a scientist, and a developer, and then I will be a blogger and come share what I have learned. Until then, I hope you get to enjoy my plugin and when you do, you truly are rich.

ChatGPT from OpenAI