OpenAI Playground: A Guide to AI Experimentation

A study by PwC revealed that artificial intelligence is set to contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. And with more than 300 AI use cases identified, the technology is set to transform numerous sectors including marketing, e-commerce, finance, and manufacturing.

ChatGPT is among the prominent examples of AI tools helping businesses save costs, boost efficiency, and increase productivity. It’s powered by GPT (generative pretrained transformer) models that are trained on vast amounts of data, allowing it to perform a variety of tasks with little or no human involvement.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, plays a central role in advancing AI technologies. Its models GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 are helping people harness the power of AI in their workflow without having to create AI systems from scratch.

OpenAI’s Playground is one part of a suite of tools that can help you expand your AI experimentation. Keep reading to discover what this platform actually entails and how you can use it.

What is OpenAI Playground?

OpenAI Playground is a comprehensive platform that allows users to test out different AI features, machine learning models, and technologies. For instance, you can try different features of GPT-3.5 or GPT-4 models to figure out how they work.

The OpenAI Playground provides extensive resources and documentation to help you find your way around and make effective use of the available AI technologies.

The 3 OpenAI Playground modes

Currently, the OpenAI Playground allows you to try out three primary modes: Assistants, Chat, and Complete. Here’s a breakdown of each.

Assistants

Playground Assistants mode provides an environment for testing the Assistants API. To use this feature, you create an AI chatbot known as an assistant, which makes use of different tools, models, and APIs to respond to user prompts.

Specifically, the Playground Assistants mode includes tools like code interpreter, functional calling, and knowledge retrieval.

• Code interpreter. This feature makes it possible to execute Python code to solve different programming and math challenges. It can also produce files like images, CSVs, and PDFs.
• Knowledge retrieval tool. The retrieval tool can fetch information that is beyond the scope of the underlying language models. This tool accepts different file formats, which it analyzes and extracts specific information.
• Functional calling. This tool allows you to create specific functions and pass them to the Assistant API. The API will then analyze the input and return functions that should be invoked.

Chat

The Playground Chat mode plays a similar role to ChatGPT, as it responds to user inputs. But in this case, the user has more control over how messages are generated. For instance, you can adjust the temperature, which determines the randomness at which responses are generated.

Other supported presets include setting the maximum number of tokens to be generated (maximum length) and controlling other intricate settings like Top P, frequency penalty, and presence penalty.

Complete

The Playground Complete mode allows users to provide suggestive prompts, and the AI model responds with a completion text that matches the pattern and context of the provided information. However, the completion models are now considered legacy, and users are being redirected to the latest Chat models.

Example use case

Here's an example to illustrate OpenAI Playground's conversational abilities—we asked it to play the role of an accounting expert and generate tips to assist other accountants in increasing their productivity:

OpenAI Playground vs. ChatGPT

While ChatGPT offers a streamlined interface for casual users, the OpenAI Playground is a more comprehensive interactive interface. Both allow users to submit prompts and receive responses, but the Playground OpenAI API offers additional features and controls.

For example, unlike ChatGPT's fixed model, Playground users have the freedom to select from multiple GPT models, with the free version offering six models based on GPT-3.5.

Below, we offer a detailed comparison of OpenAI Playground and ChatGPT for various AI applications.

User interface and technical requirements

Both ChatGPT and the OpenAI Playground feature intuitive, user-friendly interfaces. However, the Playground's interface is more complex, offering advanced settings and controls. While ChatGPT is designed for general users, the Playground requires some technical skills to fully utilize its features and perform comprehensive tests.

AI capabilities

ChatGPT and the OpenAI Playground both showcase advanced conversational AI abilities, using models like GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. Both platforms accept prompts and produce response text, tracking context and previous interactions for more personalized outputs.

However, the Playground allows users to fine-tune these capabilities by adjusting parameters like temperature and top-p, offering more control over the AI's behavior than the standard ChatGPT interface.

Customization and enhancement

While ChatGPT offers a powerful out-of-the-box experience, the OpenAI Playground provides more customization opportunities. Both platforms can be enhanced through fine-tuning, allowing the underlying GPT models to be trained on custom data for specific tasks.

However, the Playground offers more direct control over this process. ChatGPT users can access additional features through ChatGPT Plus, such as GPT-4 access and plugins, while Playground users can directly experiment with different models and integrations like DALL-E for image generation.

API integration

Both ChatGPT and the OpenAI Playground are powered by APIs that allow developers to integrate AI capabilities into their applications. However, the Playground offers a more direct interface for testing and experimenting with these APIs. While ChatGPT's API access is more structured and tailored for production use, the Playground allows developers to freely experiment with different models and parameters.

AI model capabilities and training

ChatGPT and the Playground use the same underlying models, trained on vast amounts of data. However, the Playground offers more transparency in the model selection and training process. While ChatGPT presents a polished end-product, the Playground allows users to interact more directly with different model versions and understand their distinct capabilities.

Available models and testing environment

While ChatGPT typically uses a specific, optimized model, the OpenAI Playground features access to multiple large language models and algorithms, including various GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 variants, as well as DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3. This makes the Playground a more comprehensive testing environment, allowing users to compare model performances and understand the nuances between different AI engines powering applications like ChatGPT.

Accessibility and integration

ChatGPT offers broader accessibility across multiple platforms, including Android, Chrome, iOS, and Microsoft. Users can download the ChatGPT app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store for mobile use, or access it via web browser at chat.openai.com.

Microsoft has also integrated ChatGPT's capabilities into its Edge browser, and Microsoft's Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) provides free access to the GPT-4 model.

In contrast, the OpenAI Playground is primarily accessed through a web interface, making it less versatile for on-the-go use but more suitable for developers and researchers who need a consistent testing environment.

Both ChatGPT and the OpenAI Playground offer API access, allowing developers to integrate AI functionalities into their applications. However, the process differs slightly:

• ChatGPT users need to sign up for a developer account to obtain an API key. This key is then added to outgoing app requests, with OpenAI's systems authenticating the key before sending responses.
• OpenAI Playground also requires an API key, but it provides a more interactive environment for testing API calls and adjusting parameters in real time.

In terms of accessibility features, ChatGPT has an edge with its ability to accept voice inputs and narrate generated outputs using a human-like voice, making it more accessible for users with visual impairments. The OpenAI Playground, being more focused on development and testing, doesn't offer these accessibility features by default, though they could potentially be implemented using its API.

How to use OpenAI Playground

This section outlines a possible use case for OpenAI Playground to help you get started.

You’ll need an OpenAI account to access the Playground environment, where you can interact with different models and AI technologies. You can easily create an OpenAI account on their website.

If you already have an OpenAI account, proceed to the OpenAI Playground. You should see the following dashboard:

If you want to test out the Chat mode, click on the drop-down menu button adjacent to the Playground text and then press Chat—as illustrated below.

You can then compose a prompt or message, choose your desired model, and adjust the temperature.

To illustrate, we added the “What are the five most populated countries” prompt in the PlayGround Chat mode text box. We then selected the GPT-3.5-turbo-1106 model and adjusted the temperature to 1.14.

Here’s the generated output:

It's important to highlight that the United Nations updated its population figures in July 2023, revealing an increase in population for all countries except China, with India emerging as the most populous. The data used by our ChatGPT model is from April 2023.

This distinction is often minor for most users. Yet, for businesses where precision and current data are crucial, it's vital to recognize that AI models like ChatGPT are not regularly refreshed, which may result in them operating with information that is not the most recent.

You can view the entire request by clicking the View code button on the top left corner of the web page. In our case, the request was broken down as follows:

--CODE language-markup line-numbers--
from openai import OpenAIclient = OpenAI() response =
client.chat.completions.create( model="gpt-3.5-turbo-1106",
messages=[ { "role": "user", "content": "What are the five most populated countries?" },
{ "role": "assistant" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "1. China\n2. India\n3. United States\n4. Indonesia\n5. Pakistan" } ],
temperature=1.14, max_tokens=256, top_p=1, frequency_penalty=0, presence_penalty=0 )
‍

Pricing and subscription models

While you can freely access the OpenAI Playground, you’ll need a paid account to test specific features. OpenAI uses a token-based pricing system, allowing you to pay for only what you use.

For example, to use the gpt-3.5-turbo-1106 model, you have to pay $0.0010 for 1,000 tokens (input) and $0.0020 for 1,000 (output). On the other hand, the Assistants API and code interpreter tool costs about $0.03 per session.

Users can access ChatGPT, running on the GPT-3.5 model, for free. However, they will need to pay $20 per month to use a more improved version—ChatGPT Plus. Subscribing to ChatGPT Plus allows you to enjoy benefits like increased availability during peak hours, access to the GPT-4 model, and more accurate and relevant generated text.

Need help? Find AI and API experts

As more training data becomes available, the future of ChatGPT and other generative AI models looks promising. With more research, these AI technologies are projected to get better with time, especially in areas like natural language processing (NLP), personalization, and bias mitigation.

Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, you can use OpenAI Playground to test different OpenAI technologies as they emerge. In the process, you gather more insights into how AI tools work and how they can fit into your workflow. You also sharpen your understanding of the evolving AI landscape.

Looking to start building OpenAI Playground into your operations? Upwork can connect you to ChatGPT experts to help you harness the power of AI effectively.

And if you’re an expert looking for work, start your search on Upwork. With ChatGPT jobs being posted regularly, you can find different projects to work on to sharpen your skills while earning extra income. Get started today!

‍

‍Disclosure: Upwork is an OpenAI partner, giving OpenAI customers and other businesses direct access to trusted expert independent professionals experienced in working with OpenAI technologies.

Upwork does not control, operate, or sponsor the other tools or services discussed in this article, which are only provided as potential options. Each reader and company should take the time to adequately analyze and determine the tools or services that would best fit their specific needs and situation.

Prices are current at the time of writing and may change over time based on each service’s offerings.