Hugging Face unveils open-source rival to ChatGPT

The tool is available for testing via the web interface and for integration with existing applications and services via API. HuggingChat can perform many tasks that ChatGPT handles, such as code writing, drafting emails and composing rap lyrics.

Open Assistant is based on a model from the Open Assistant project, organised by the German non-profit organisation LAION. The same developers contributed to creating the dataset used to train the Stable Diffusion image-generation model.

Open Assistant aims to replicate ChatGPT. However the group, largely made up of volunteers, has broader ambitions.

“We want to create a helper of the future, capable not only of writing emails but also of performing meaningful work, using APIs, dynamically researching information and much more,” — wrote on the GitHub page by project participants.

The team also aims to create a ‘compact assistant’ for efficient operation on consumer hardware.

According to the bot itself, it fully understands English and Hungarian. It also has basic knowledge of Russian and German.

As with ChatGPT, HuggingChat includes filters that prevent the bot from generating dangerous and toxic content. However the tool can still make incorrect statements and misinformation.

In April, Stability AI unveiled the StableLM family of large language models.

In May 2022, Hugging Face was valued at $2 billion.