Hugging Face, the developers behind the popular natural language processing platform, has announced the launch of an open-source generative AI chatbot called HuggingChat ( https://huggingface.co/chat/ ). With its design and functionality, HuggingChat aims to compete with OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT chatbot.
HuggingChat is available online as a standalone website, and developers can integrate it into their existing software using Hugging Face’s API. Although HuggingChat can perform most of the same text composition services as ChatGPT, it sets itself apart by focusing on personalization and creating authentic connections between users and their avatar friends.
HuggingChat’s avatars can either be characters created for the platform or customized for individual users. The chatbot also boasts advanced training in emotions and empathy, allowing it to provide a more human-like interaction. In contrast, HuggingChat subtly criticizes ChatGPT for taking a neutral stance.
While HuggingChat has high ambitions, it may not yet match ChatGPT’s level, but being an open-source software means it has the potential to improve rapidly.
Hugging Face collaborated with LAION, a nonprofit organization, and its Open Assistant AI model to build HuggingChat. LAION is also the creator of the training dataset Stability AI, which is used to make Stable Diffusion. Hugging Face is renowned for creating open-source generative AI models such as BLOOM, and HuggingChat extends this work to a conversational interface.
Last week, Stability AI released the first set of its new open-source StableLM models for writing text and code. While HuggingChat does not explicitly state that it aims to take ChatGPT’s place, the group behind Open Assistant is explicit in its goal of creating an assistant that can write emails and cover letters, conduct research, use APIs, and perform many other tasks in a personalized and open manner.
Open Assistant’s GitHub page explains, “We want to build the assistant of the future, which means we must not only build a great assistant but also make it small and efficient enough to run on consumer hardware.”
Overall, HuggingChat is a promising new addition to the world of generative AI chatbots, and we are excited to see how it evolves and competes with other players in the market. As it is open-source, it presents an opportunity for developers and enthusiasts to contribute to its growth and development.
