[HN Gopher] Show HN: SlickGPT
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       Show HN: SlickGPT
        
       SlickGPT is a light-weight "use-your-own-API-key" ChatGPT client
       written in Svelte. It offers GPT-4 integration, a userless share
       feature and other superpowers.
        
       Author : Shackles
       Score  : 67 points
       Date   : 2023-03-27 07:42 UTC (15 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (slickgpt.vercel.app)
 (TXT) w3m dump (slickgpt.vercel.app)
        
       | H8crilA wrote:
       | I'm missing the purpose of this.
        
         | yreg wrote:
         | It seems to me that ChatGPT's history archive is down 98% of
         | the time, so that would be one reason for using a custom web
         | UI.
        
           | moffkalast wrote:
           | Has anyone ever needed that history? I sure haven't. It's
           | like having a copy of every google search and result you ever
           | got, entirely pointless.
        
             | circuit10 wrote:
             | Yes, all the time, it's very frustrating to use it without
             | it
        
             | taylorfinley wrote:
             | I found it very helpful when writing a blog post series
             | about teaching GPT to translate ROT13-encoded text--instead
             | of documenting each prompt as I went, I could just get into
             | a flow state with the model and try a bunch of things,
             | going back later to pick the moments that gave me an
             | insight.
        
             | gremlinsinc wrote:
             | I think it'd be better if you could just 'save' the ones
             | you want to keep, the rest are automatically discarded.
        
             | yreg wrote:
             | I needed it many times (and it was often unavailable). When
             | I wanted to continue with previous conversation or refer
             | back to something GPT said.
             | 
             | I even experienced it indirectly when I asked someone on
             | reddit about a prompt they have used to make something
             | (generate a pretty good video script) and OP said that they
             | would gladly share it, but unfortunately the history was
             | down.
             | 
             | I don't use GPT to get information in a search-engine
             | manner.
        
       | detrites wrote:
       | > SlickGPT allows you to run your own local ChatGPT instance
       | 
       | No, it doesn't. If it did, it would be a 700GB+ download and not
       | need OpenAI API keys. Wish folks would stop saying it.
        
         | Tepix wrote:
         | German press is just as bad:
         | 
         | https://www.golem.de/news/ki-auf-dem-intel-8088-entwickler-b...
         | 
         | "Entwickler bringt ChatGPT auf MS-DOS zum Laufen"
         | 
         | in English:
         | 
         | "Developer gets ChatGPT to run on MS-DOS".
        
           | neuronic wrote:
           | This portion is especially hilarious:
           | 
           | "Auf den Entwickler kam allerdings direkt eine weitere Hurde
           | hinzu: MS-DOS integriert nativ keinen Netzwerk-Stack oder
           | eine entsprechende API. Die ist allerdings fur den Zugriff
           | auf ChatGPT zwingend notwendig."
           | 
           | DeepL:
           | 
           | "However, the developer was immediately faced with another
           | hurdle: MS-DOS does not natively integrate a network stack or
           | a corresponding API. However, this is absolutely necessary
           | for accessing ChatGPT."
           | 
           | Golem is a very highly frequented German technology website.
        
         | throwaway49593 wrote:
         | ChatGPT is the name of a frontend app/service (albeit a first-
         | party one). The model itself is called gpt-3.5-turbo. I think
         | you're wrong on this one.
        
           | KomoD wrote:
           | > We've trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a
           | conversational way.
           | 
           | > ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT
           | 
           | OpenAI's own words
        
             | throwaway49593 wrote:
             | A little outdated, though. I consider them to have renamed
             | the model, since there's no such model as ChatGPT available
             | via API and the docs now explicitly mention gpt-3.5-turbo
             | is the model name (again with no mention of ChatGPT). You
             | have Chat mode in the Playground, but no model like that.
             | And in ChatGPT interface itself they say things like "based
             | on old gpt-3.5-turbo model".
        
         | Shackles wrote:
         | You're right. Fixed wording in our README on Github, can't edit
         | HN post. Thanks
        
         | zwaps wrote:
         | My favorite is: I am training GPT to...
         | 
         | what they are doing: adding a prompt
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | zb3 wrote:
       | Typing is very slow, that needs to be fixed.
        
         | Shackles wrote:
         | Do you mean if you type something or if you retrieve the
         | answer/completion from ChatGPT? Which model are you using?
        
           | cbenz wrote:
           | I tried and just typing letters is slow, they appear ~1
           | second after typing. Deleting text is slow also. I'm under
           | Linux+Chrome.
        
       | wingworks wrote:
       | Simple, clean UI, I like it.
        
       | 1xdevloper wrote:
       | If you're using a third-party UI for ChatGPT, it might as well be
       | a browser extension [0] or a native app [1]. It really shines
       | when you break it out of its website interface and start using it
       | like a command palette/context menu.
       | 
       | [0] https://sublimegpt.com
       | 
       | [1] https://macgpt.com
        
         | TalFeld wrote:
         | Couldn't agree more, that is exactly why we built Buddy - an
         | open source chrome extension with a cool cmdk interface to
         | OpenAI's API. Everything runs locally (besides the API calls).
         | HN post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35299433 ,GitHub
         | - https://github.com/INT-Calutt/buddy.
        
         | manojlds wrote:
         | Yeah I don't even understand the point of this SlickGPT.
        
           | Shackles wrote:
           | It's a userfriendly web client for the latest OpenAI
           | chatCompletion API with additional features compared to the
           | official chat.openai.com client (mainly: "Share chats" &
           | better param customization), it's Open Source and can be run
           | locally or self-hosted easily. It's built in one of the most
           | popular frontend tech stacks of the last years. Not more and
           | not less than that.
        
         | otherworldly wrote:
         | Agreed! I've found that staying in my workflow leads to fewer
         | inadvertent context switches (like ChatGPT in-browser -> HN ->
         | ... -> rabbit hole). MacGPT looks great. I created a similar
         | plugin for my Windows keystroke launcher (think
         | Alfred/Spotlight) for the same reason. If anyone's interested,
         | you can check it out here: https://github.com/dkgv/pinpoint
        
         | jinay wrote:
         | I'm beginning to think there's one too many of these kinds of
         | apps, but if anyone is interested in a cross-platform (Mac,
         | Linux, Windows) alternative, I've built a command-palette type
         | interface [1] to GPT that supports code blocks/LaTeX too.
         | 
         | [1] https://github.com/JinayJain/gpt-anywhere/releases/latest
        
           | neuronic wrote:
           | There are. But as NVIDIA has proven, being the last tool of a
           | type to be developed isn't necessarily a futile undertaking.
        
         | hombre_fatal wrote:
         | It's the new hello world. Here's a Telegram bot:
         | https://github.com/danneu/telegram-chatgpt-bot
         | 
         | https://t.me/god_in_a_bot
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | filenox wrote:
       | As with other OpenAI based applications, I don't feel comfortable
       | sharing my private API key with an application I don't know.
       | Especially when the webpage isn't telling me what this app is
       | about. I suggest adding a small demo video or at least adding
       | some bullets on what this app is trying to solve.
        
         | Shackles wrote:
         | I get that fear and it's fair. SlickGPT is OS, self-hostable
         | and just runs locally, so you can check the code and run your
         | own instance if you don't trust that ours running on Vercel is
         | on-par with the one in the repo. You can also put a soft and
         | hard cap on your API quota on the OpenAI page and monitor it to
         | verify that only you are using it.
         | 
         | The key is passed (see https://github.com/ShipBit/slickgpt/blob
         | /main/src/lib/ChatIn...) to a Vercel edge function (see https:/
         | /github.com/ShipBit/slickgpt/blob/main/src/routes/api...) that
         | does the actual call to the OpenAI API. This function is
         | stateless and doesn't store anything. I also put it in your
         | localStorage using a store (see https://github.com/ShipBit/slic
         | kgpt/blob/main/src/misc/store...) so that you don't have to
         | enter it over and over again.
         | 
         | As for the "what is this trying to solve" - read our
         | documentation in the GitHub repo over at
         | https://github.com/ShipBit/slickgpt.
        
         | bsoni wrote:
         | 100% agreed! I don't feel like sharing my API key either! Too
         | bad, I wanted to see if it can understand Simplified Chinese.
        
         | pmarreck wrote:
         | OpenAI's API key page lets you issue new keys, see when they
         | were last used, and withdraw them at any time.
         | 
         | So this seems a bit paranoid.
        
           | osigurdson wrote:
           | True, but it is still weird to paste your credentials into an
           | unknown service.
        
             | sbarre wrote:
             | Yes of course, it certainly is. So before you do that, you
             | should make the service not be unknown to you.
             | 
             | Good thing this is open source!
        
               | osigurdson wrote:
               | I'm not sure if there is any way to tell if an open
               | source service is actually using the open source code. It
               | still comes down to trusting the url.
        
           | bastawhiz wrote:
           | Stripe's dashboard lets you do the same thing but like hell
           | I'm giving you my secret key.
        
             | pmarreck wrote:
             | This is a standard way to grant API access in literally
             | every piece of software that's provided an API access I've
             | ever used in the last 5-10 years. I'm not sure what informs
             | such paranoia.
        
         | bertman wrote:
         | It's a self-hostable chat interface for the OpenAI GPT API.
         | 
         | From their Github Readme:
         | 
         | SlickGPT allows you to run your own local ChatGPT instance,
         | host it yourself or just use our instance if you like. Users
         | bring their own OpenAI API keys. SlickGPT offers them a very
         | fancy user interface with a rich feature set like managing a
         | local chat history (in the localStorage), a userless "Share"
         | function for chats, a prominent context editor, and token cost
         | calculation and distribution.
         | 
         | https://github.com/ShipBit/slickgpt
        
           | danpalmer wrote:
           | > SlickGPT allows you to run your own local ChatGPT instance
           | 
           | I find it interesting that so many projects claim to be "run
           | your own ChatGPT", when they're in fact "run your own web
           | UI". Are people really so ignorant of how this works that
           | they're equating these concepts, or believing that the web UI
           | is anything more than a razor thin veneer?
           | 
           | I guess maybe people use ChatGPT to refer to the interface,
           | and GPT-N to refer to the models, but that's not very
           | accurate given the amount of tuning, it's much more accurate
           | to say that ChatGPT is a productised GPT instance, with a web
           | UI.
        
             | manojlds wrote:
             | In this case it is.
             | 
             | Lot of others posted are other models that people could
             | use.
        
             | sebzim4500 wrote:
             | You can use the same model that ChatGPT uses through the
             | API, and it isn't called 'ChatGPT' it's called 'GPT-4'. So
             | at least officially ChatGPT refers to the webUI not the
             | model.
        
               | danpalmer wrote:
               | I'm not sure that's true though. The first line of the
               | ChatGPT blog post is:
               | 
               | > We've trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in
               | a conversational way
               | 
               | It really seems that GPT-3/3.5/4/etc are the generic
               | models, and that ChatGPT is the fine tuning, a safety
               | layer, and so on. This is also why ChatGPT and Bing don't
               | provide the same or even remotely equivalent answers
               | despite both running on GPT-4.
        
               | dizhn wrote:
               | As far as I know the current chatGPT running on the
               | chat.openai website is specifically gpt3.5-turbo .
        
             | humanistbot wrote:
             | > I find it interesting that so many projects claim to be
             | "run your own ChatGPT", when they're in fact "run your own
             | web UI". Are people really so ignorant of how this works
             | that they're equating these concepts, or believing that the
             | web UI is anything more than a razor thin veneer?
             | 
             | Perhaps, but also there is a huge incentive to blur that
             | line, obviously from the developers of these UIs, but also
             | from the people at media outlets covering them. If they
             | told the truth, it wouldn't be as big of a story. And I'm
             | just waiting for the "7 year old makes their own GPT"
             | story. For a long time now, the overwhelming majority of
             | tech journalism has been just uncritically rephrasing press
             | releases.
        
             | jasonjmcghee wrote:
             | For it to be good, it should also have a specific system
             | prompt and chat history, which is fed to the model. With
             | langchain this isn't too difficult to build, but it's not
             | just a web ui.
             | 
             | This one doesn't appear to use a custom prompt, so I'm
             | guessing it doesn't perform as well as ChatGPT, but it does
             | look like it passes message history.
        
               | Shackles wrote:
               | SlickGPT passes message history including a "context" or
               | "system" message which it clearly explains to the user at
               | the start of every chat. This is probably the most
               | important thing the official chat.openai.com client fails
               | to explain or expose to users directly.
        
               | Veen wrote:
               | But you can do all that with the OpenAI Playground for
               | the chat API, and it supports GPT-4. I don't really see
               | what your service adds to that.
        
             | ericmcer wrote:
             | It's just a hot marketing strategy, it has a totally
             | different reception outside of HN. There are already people
             | making 5k+ MRR with apps that are just a chatGPT wrapper
             | that passes user input with some additional context and
             | prompts.
             | 
             | I could easily see a wave of small startups that are just a
             | few inputs and the context needed to generate documents
             | people currently write by hand. Like subpoenas, doctors
             | letters to insurance companies, etc. You can stand one up
             | with a bit of industry knowledge and a couple 100 LOC.
        
               | JohnFen wrote:
               | I expect this, too. Scammers are gonna scam.
        
             | totetsu wrote:
             | Its like when everything became an 'app' all of a sudden.
        
       | swah wrote:
       | Like the big ui, reminds me of 37signals (I think?)
        
       | antibasilisk wrote:
       | Why?
        
         | JoeJonathan wrote:
         | I was wondering the same. The HN cheerleading for members of
         | the tribe makes this place feel like a recipe blog. "Looks yum!
         | Can't wait to tryy." 5 stars.
        
       | gitgud wrote:
       | Clean UI, loads fast, but there's significant latency when I type
       | a prompt into the text box... probably client state being
       | debounced or something
        
         | solumunus wrote:
         | This. There is very noticeable latency when typing. This is on
         | a very powerful desktop PC using Chrome. If you hold down a
         | character on your keyboard it shows the issue more clearly, the
         | input will sporadically appear every few seconds.
        
           | Shackles wrote:
           | Okay, this shouldn't happen. Please create a GitHub issue,
           | I'll investigate.
        
       | jeroenhd wrote:
       | Design wise it's not bad, but for some reason it takes a while
       | second for the words I type on my phone to appear in the prompt
       | area. Quite a pity.
        
         | Yoda3000 wrote:
         | Is it slow while typing on your phone or is it slow showing the
         | characters in the input field? Which phone do you use?
        
           | thrwy_918 wrote:
           | It's very slow when typing characters in the input field. It
           | feels like a react application that's doing a bunch of
           | component re-rendering on every keypress.
        
             | Shackles wrote:
             | Got it, it's a bug and happens because of the token
             | calculation. We'll fix it. Thanks for reporting.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | smusamashah wrote:
       | There is also https://niek.github.io/chatgpt-web/
        
         | itsuka wrote:
         | I just started putting together these Chat API-based UIs in
         | this repo, in case anyone's interested:
         | https://github.com/itsuka-dev/awesome-chatgpt-ui
        
         | dvcrn wrote:
         | Heh, I wrote one too (in Elixir + LiveView) -
         | https://github.com/dvcrn/chatgpt-ui
         | 
         | Background was that we wanted to explore providing access to
         | ChatGPT to employees at $company, but restrict access with
         | Google OAuth using company email, and use the company OpenAI
         | API key on the back. So I hacked together something quick that
         | matches our requirements and we can self-host.
        
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