Over the past few months, generative AI has been among the buzziest trending topics, with OpenAI continuing to update the language model that powers ChatGPT, Microsoft building AI into many of its products, and Google introducing its own chatbot. While tech giants dominate the headlines, another chatbot has entered the field, but this one doesn’t have the backing of a major corporation. Meet ColossalChat, the first open-source AI chatbot.
Try the ColossalChat AI chatbot for free
ColossalChat is based on Meta’s LLaMA model, and developer Yang Yoo claims it’s “the first practical open-source project that includes a complete RLHF process for replicating ChatGPT-like models.” RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback) is a technique that rewards language models when they respond appropriately to a prompt.
Much like ChatGPT, ColossalChat can answer questions, draft emails, and write code. There are a few key differences, though. ColossalChat’s knowledge base actually ends in 2019, so it can’t discuss current events. For example, when I asked who won the World Series in 2022, it gave me the results from the 2019 World Series.
Another big difference is that you don’t have to make an account to use ColossalChat. Just go to chat.colossalai.org in your browser and start typing. There’s no ColossalChat+, so you don’t have to pay to access to all of the AI’s features or skip the line.
The developers responsible for ColossalChat will never have the resources of Microsoft or Google, but what they were able to build using what was available to them is incredibly impressive. At the very least, this shows that open-source solutions could potentially compete with the paid and ad-ridden AI chatbots from the industry’s biggest players.
If you want to learn more about Colossal-AI, all of the work is being done out in the open on GitHub. If you want, you can even build the project on your own computer.
