OpenAI API Cookbook: Build intelligent applications including chatbots, virtual assistants, and content generators

OpenAI API Cookbook

Copyright © 2024 Packt Publishing

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First published: March 2024

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ISBN 978-1-80512-135-0

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To Soniya, Faisal, Munira, Maheen, Karan, and Riri.

– Henry

Foreword

I started working with Henry after taking one of his online courses, where he was teaching working professionals how they could save time and work faster by using no-code tools. He was both passionate and practical when delivering his content. Particularly, he focused on tangible use cases rather than abstract concepts that did not drive real-world outcomes.

Having been in the field of AI and productivity for more than 10 years, he saw the emerging citizen developer trend where anyone could build tools and solutions quickly without knowing any code. When the OpenAI API was first released to the public, Henry was one the first to teach professionals how they can use it to work faster, and his course quickly reached bestseller status within one week of its release.

In this book, Henry takes you on a journey on how to use the OpenAI API to build intelligent applications – tools that you can use to automate processes, improve productivity, save time, or build new businesses. He starts by introducing the OpenAI API and its endpoints, features, and parameters, and then he uses it to build apps and assistants. Throughout the book, he always adds practical and real-life examples so that you can start creating an impact from the first page.

This is an essential guide for knowledge workers eager to harness the power of OpenAI and ChatGPT to build intelligent applications and solutions. It enables you to integrate the OpenAI API into various domains, from simple apps to whole assistants.

Henry is also the architect behind The Intelligent Worker, one of the largest newsletters focused on teaching everyday workers how they can be productive at work with AI, automation, no-code, and other technologies. He continues his mission to empower individuals and boost their productivity through technologies with his online courses.

Sam McKay, CEO and founder of Enterprise DNA, which offers top-notch data and AI skills training to over 220,000 data professionals

Today, AI and ChatGPT are much more than household words, being a consistent and animated point of discussion and debate. However, they are also immediately actionable tools that can deliver a mind-bending list of potential applications. Unlike any technology in history, AI (and ChatGPT) has eclipsed traditional milestones in user usage, spurring spectacular growth from application ideas through to development and deployment.

For people like you (and me), who are interested in implementing ChatGPT in new and innovative ways, ChatGPT’s meteoric rise to prominence is a testament to the relevance of the problems it solves, and to the importance that information and tools play in today’s digital society. With its unparalleled ability to understand and generate human-like text, ChatGPT represents not just a technological leap but a paradigm shift in human-computer interaction.

As you journey through this book, I strongly encourage you to take copious notes and to use it as the working handbook that Henry Habib intended it to be. Use it to create your next successful app or business, or employ it to enrich your thinking about how to innovate your next great thing. In fact, I hope you will do what any successful entrepreneur, innovator, investor, or developer does when they are presented with a lot of information and opportunity – dream on it. That’s right – take the ideas and information you gain in this book and dream on it. Then, return to the book again and again to fashion your dreams into a reality with the tools you will have gained here.

I believe Henry has masterfully constructed OpenAI API Cookbook. But I knew he could and would when I first learned of this project. From the day Henry and I first met, I recognized in him an impressive combination of technical expertise and communications skills. As a result, I have engaged him in professional development and educational programs for a global network of enterprises (including HSBC) and online education platforms (including Coursera). His proficiency in tools such as SQL, Python, Spark, Qlik Sense, and TensorFlow, combined with his practical knowledge of big data analysis in financial services, retail, and telecommunications, his underlining passion for AI and machine learning, and his ability to communicate simply make him an ideal author to create this guidebook.

I know you will thoroughly enjoy this book, as I did. Use it, as I have, and see your next dream come true.

Paul Siegel, serial technology entrepreneur and CEO and founder of Starweaver, a top-tier education platform focused on technology and business

Contributors

About the author

Henry Habib is a manager at one of the world’s top management consulting firms, advising F500 companies on analytics and operations, with a particular focus on building intelligent AI-driven solutions and tools to create impact. He is a passionate online instructor and educator, amassing a network of more than 150,000 paid students and facilitating technical programs at large banks and governmental organizations.

A proponent of the no-code and LLM revolution, he believes that anyone can now create powerful and intelligent applications without any deep technical skills. Henry resides in Toronto, Canada, with his wife, and he enjoys reading AI research papers and playing tennis in his free time.

I want to thank Mudita, Tejashwini, and the Packt team for helping me expand my passion for education to the written medium.

About the reviewers

Arindam Ganguly has been working as an experienced data scientist at one of the leading multi-national software service firms for more than eight years, where he is responsible for developing and designing intelligent solutions, leveraging his expertise in AI and data analytics. He also has a vast amount of expertise in developing automation and hyper-automation solutions, leveraging automated workflow engines, and integrating them with AI.

Arindam is also a published author, writing the book Build and Deploy Machine Learning Solutions Using IBM Watson, which teaches you how to build AI applications using the popular IBM Watson toolkit.

Ashutosh Vishwakarma is the co-founder of , a pioneering conversational AI firm, and he has over eight years of expertise in developing and architecting high-scale, machine learning-driven systems. He spearheads innovations within the Large Language Model (LLM) ecosystem, focusing on crafting next-generation user experiences. His comprehensive background ensures a deep understanding of both the technical and strategic facets of AI development, from conception to deployment.

Eswari Jayakumar is a passionate software developer with over seven years of experience, proficient in multiple programming languages. Her expertise spans a wide array of technologies, with a profound interest in cutting-edge fields such as DevOps, machine learning, computer vision, and LLMs. Originally from India, she moved to Canada to pursue her master’s in computer science at the University of New Brunswick. In addition to her technical acumen, Eswari is an adept content writer, sharing her technical knowledge through engaging blogs. She spends her free time volunteering in coding communities. Follow her journey and connect with her on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/eswarijayakumar

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Table of Contents

Preface

1

Unlocking OpenAI and Setting Up Your API Playground Environment

Technical requirements

Setting up your OpenAI Playground environment

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

Running a completion request in the OpenAI Playground

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more…

Using the System Message in the OpenAI Playground

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more…

Using the Chat Log to modify the model’s behavior

How to do it…

How it works…

Making OpenAI API requests with Postman

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

2

OpenAI API Endpoints Explained

Technical requirements

Generating customized responses using the Chat Completions endpoint

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more…

Creating pictures using the Images endpoint

How to do it…

How it works…

Generating transcripts using the Audio endpoint

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

3

Understanding Key Parameters and Their Impact on Generated Responses

Technical requirements

Changing the model parameter and understanding its impact on generated responses

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

Controlling the number of generated responses using the n parameter

How to do it…

How it works…

Determining the randomness and creativity of generated responses using the temperature parameter

How to do it…

How it works…

4

Incorporating Additional Features from the OpenAI API

Technical requirements

Using the Python library to call the OpenAI API

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

Benefits and drawbacks of using the Python library

Using the embedding model for text comparisons and other use cases

How to do it…

How it works…

Fine-tuning a completion model

How to do it…

How it works…

5

Staging the OpenAI API for Application Development

Technical requirements

Creating a public endpoint server that calls the OpenAI API

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

Extending the endpoint server to accept parameters and return data

How to do it…

How it works…

Calling the user-created endpoint from no-code applications

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

6

Building Intelligent Applications with the OpenAI API

Technical requirements

Creating a wrapper application that generates replies to your emails

How to do it…

How it works…

Creating a multi-modal application that generates travel itineraries

How to do it…

How it works…

7

Building Assistants with the OpenAI API

Technical requirements

Creating a knowledge-retrieval assistant application

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

Creating a knowledge-retrieval assistant through the Assistants API

How to do it…

How it works…

Index

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Preface

In the rapidly advancing generative AI world, the ability to create innovative applications such as chatbots, virtual assistants, content generation tools, and productivity enhancers can be a game-changer. The OpenAI API is your key to achieving this, enabling you to build high-performance intelligent applications in diverse industries or to increase your productivity by adding ChatGPT into your workflows.

You will begin with the fundamentals of the OpenAI API, including setup, authentication, and key parameters, enabling a solid foundation for working with API.

Next, you will learn about the different elements of the OpenAI API and how to use it effectively, along with the importance of tweaking certain parameters for better results. You will uncover extra features of the OpenAI API that will improve user experience and enable you to obtain refined outputs. Further, you will be guided on moving from development to a live application; you will learn how to set up the API for public use and application backends. Subsequently, you will be able to build knowledge-based assistants and multi-model applications that are tailored to your specific needs.

By the end of this book, you will have a comprehensive and practical mastery of the OpenAI API and will be ready to build intelligent and AI-powered solutions.

Who this book is for

This book is perfect for working professionals and citizen developers who are keen on using and mastering the OpenAI API. Ideal for quickly creating intelligent applications such as chatbots or content generators, it caters to both beginners and experienced professionals.

The OpenAI API in this book is accessed with Python. Familiarity with Python and APIs is desired but absolutely not required.

What this book covers

Chapter 1

, Unlocking OpenAI and Setting Up Your API Playground Environment, covers the steps