4/12/23, 3:38 AM Getting Started with Auto-GPT for Beginners: Setup & Usage

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Getting
GPT for Started with
Beginners: Auto-
Setup &
Usage
by EdXD · Updated April 12, 2023 ·  No comments ·  7 minute read

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4/12/23, 3:38 AM Getting Started with Auto-GPT for Beginners: Setup & Usage

Auto-GPT is an experimental open-source application that shows off the abilities of the
well-known GPT-4 language model.
It uses GPT-4 to perform complex tasks and achieve goals without much human input.
Auto-GPT links together multiple instances of OpenAI’s GPT model, allowing it to do
things like complete tasks without help, write and debug code, and correct its own writing
mistakes.
Instead of simply asking ChatGPT to create code, Auto-GPT makes several AI agents work
together to develop websites, create newsletters, compile online pages based on user
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4/12/23, 3:38 AM Getting Started with Auto-GPT for Beginners: Setup & Usage

requests, and more. This level of independence is an essential feature of Auto-GPT, as it turns
the language model into a more capable agent that can act and learn from its errors.

## Quick Demo
This is a quick demo of me using Auto-GPT to find topics for my Linux blog. I don’t go through
with it until the end because it would take some time. But this should give you a good idea of
what Auto-GPT can do.

You can give Auto-GPT tasks such as:

Improve my online store’s web presence at storexd.com (not a real site)
Help grow my Linux-themed socks business
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Collect all competing Linux tutorial blogs and save them to a CSV file
Code a Python app that does X
Auto-GPT has a framework to follow and tools to use, including:
Browsing websites
Searching Google
Connecting to ElevenLabs for text-to-speech (like Jarvis from Iron Man)
Evaluating its own thoughts, plans, and criticisms to self-improve
Running code
Reading/writing files on your hard drive
And more
This push for autonomy is part of ongoing AI research to create models that can simulate
thought, reason, and self-critique to complete various tasks and subtasks.
In this tutorial we’ll install Auto-GPT on your local computer, and we’ll also cover a bit
on how to use it and some additional considerations.
The steps are laid out in a beginner friendly way, so you don’t need to have in-depth
programming knowledge to set it up.
If you’re not familiar with Python, Git, or JSON syntax you may feel a little
intimidated, but you can still run it just the same. The process will probably seem a
bit confusing until you’re up and running.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

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4/12/23, 3:38 AM Getting Started with Auto-GPT for Beginners: Setup & Usage

1 Quick Demo
2 Requirements
(Optional) Set OpenAI Usage Limit
Install Python
Install Git
Install virtualenvwrapper (Optional)
3 Install Auto-GPT
Video Demo Installing Auto-GPT
Download Auto-GPT from Github
4 Configure Auto-GPT API Keys
Run Auto-GPT
Troubleshooting
“Warning: Failed to parse AI output, attempting to fix.” Loop
5 Conclusion
6 Resources & Acknowledgements

## Requirements
To run Auto-GPT, the minimum requirements are:
Pretty much any modern device. Even a low spec laptop or small server.
Python 3.7 or later and Git installed
An OpenAI Account and API Key
Optional: If you want the AI to speak you also need an ElevenLabs.io Account and API
Key

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 ### (Optional) Set OpenAI Usage Limit
4/12/23, 3:38 AM Getting Started with Auto-GPT for Beginners: Setup & Usage

Please keep in mind that your OpenAI API account charges you based on usage. Given that
Auto-GPT aims at being autonomous, it may be tempting to let it do it’s thing without
supervision, however sometimes it may throw errors repeatedly and will use up your funds.
Auto-GPT asks you what you want to do at every step by default, however you can also let it
do it’s thing for a number of steps or you can enable continuous mode, which you should be
careful with.
A good idea is to set usage limits in OpenAI https://platform.openai.com/account/billing/limits.

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You can set lower limits than mine. Auto-GPT doesn’t use many tokens. I’ve used it multiple
times and I’ve only used $1.59 over the past week.

### Install Python

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Python is a versatile programming language that’s user-friendly and widely used for AI
projects like Auto-GPT. Even if you’re not familiar with it, no worries!
You only need to install Python to run Auto-GPT.
To install it use this short tutorial that shows how to install it for Windows/Mac or
Linux https://python.land/installing-python.

### Install Git

To install Git go here (it’s a simple tutorial) https://github.com/git-guides/install-git and follow
the instructions corresponding to your operating system.
Git is a tool that helps developers keep track of their code, collaborate with others, and
handle different stages of a project. Imagine it as a smart “undo” and “redo” button that
makes organizing your projects a breeze.
GitHub is an online platform where people store and share their projects, making it easy
for others to access, contribute, or learn from them. Auto-GPT is one of these projects.
For our purposes, you just need to know how to download a Auto-GPT, or “pull” it,
from GitHub.
After installing Git on your computer, we’ll show you how to grab the Auto-GPT repo
in a few easy steps, so you can start using it in no time.

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 ### Install virtualenvwrapper (Optional)
4/12/23, 3:38 AM Getting Started with Auto-GPT for Beginners: Setup & Usage

I also recommend using virtualenvwrapper to install Auto-GPT, although this is optional.

Virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper are tools used in Python to create isolated
environments for your projects. They help keep each project’s packages and
dependencies separate, avoiding conflicts between them. You can think of it like a
sandbox, or VirtualBox or VMWare (if you’re familiar with them) but for Python.
Virtualenv is the basic tool that creates these environments, while virtualenvwrapper is an
extension that makes managing multiple environments easier and more convenient.
For Auto-GPT, using a virtual environment is beneficial because it has specific packages it
depends on. By creating a separate environment, you ensure that these packages won’t
interfere with other projects, making it safer and more organized.
We’ll easily install it using pip that comes with Python. Pip is a tool used in Python
for installing and managing packages, which are reusable pieces of code or libraries
that add functionality to your projects.
With pip, you can easily install, update, and remove packages from your Python
environment.

#### Install virtualenvwrapper on Linux/OS X

Open a terminal and run:
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$ pip install virtualenvwrapper

If you encounter the command not found error after installing it, check our related post on how
to fix it Fix Virtualenvwrapper workon/mkvirtualenv: command not found.

#### Install virtualenvwrapper on Windows

Open cmd or Powershell or your preferred terminal emulator and run:
$ pip install virtualenvwrapper-win

#### Create & Activate a Virtual Environment

Now that we’ve got virtualenvwrapper installed we can easily create a virtual environment and
then we’ll install Auto-GPT.
To do this run your operating system’s terminal and navigate to the directory where you’d like
to install Auto-GPT.
Then run the following command replacing name_of_virtual_environment with whatever
name you want, like autogpt .
$ mkvirtualenv name_of_virtual_environment

Example

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$ mkvirtualenv autogpt

#### Deactivate & Reactivate a Virtual Environment

To deactivate a virtual environment simply run the following command (or close the
terminal):
$ deactivate

To reactivate the virtual environment run:

$ workon name_of_virtual_environment

## Install Auto-GPT
Assuming you have all the requirements, we can get to installing Auto-GPT.

### Video Demo Installing Auto-GPT

This is a quick demo of me downloading Auto-GPT from Github and installing it’s
dependencies.

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### Download Auto-GPT from Github

To install Auto-GPT on your computer you just have to download it from Github and then
install some of its’ dependencies.
To do this, navigate the the directory where you want it downloaded, activate the virtual
environment you want to use (if you want to use one), and run:
$ git clone https://github.com/Torantulino/Auto-GPT.git

Next cd into the newly created Auto-GPT directory and run the following command to install
Auto-GPT’s dependencies. This will take a minute or so.
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$ pip install -r requirements.txt

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

## Configure Auto-GPT API Keys

Next we’ll need to use OpenAI’s API Keys so that Auto-GPT can use the GPT API.
You can generate an API key here https://platform.openai.com/account/api-keys.

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Make sure to keep that key secret because it’s like a password to using GPT from your account. If
someone else has access to it, it’s all they need to use GPT and use up your funds.

#### Edit The .env.template File

We’ll want to take that API Key from OpenAI and edit the .env.template file located in the
Auto-GPT directory.
If you don’t see it, depending on your operating system, it’s probably hidden. So make sure to
enable viewing hidden files.

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First, rename .env.template to .env (including the dot . )

After, if you open it up it will look something like the code below. Replace
your-openai-api-key with your actual OpenAI API key.

You can ignore all the other values right now, because we just want to get this up and running.
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PINECONE_API_KEY=your-pinecone-api-key
PINECONE_ENV=your-pinecone-region
OPENAI_API_KEY= your-openai-api-key
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your-elevenlabs-api-key
SMART_LLM_MODEL="gpt-4"
FAST_LLM_MODEL="gpt-3.5-turbo"
GOOGLE_API_KEY=
CUSTOM_SEARCH_ENGINE_ID=
USE_AZURE=False
OPENAI_API_BASE=your-base-url-for-azure
OPENAI_API_VERSION=api-version-for-azure
OPENAI_DEPLOYMENT_ID=deployment-id-for-azure
IMAGE_PROVIDER=dalle
HUGGINGFACE_API_TOKEN=

Save and close the file when you’re done.

### Run Auto-GPT

Finally we can run Auto-GPT.
To do this just run the following command in your command-line while in your Auto-GPT
directory (and with your virtual environment activated if you are using one):
$ python scripts/main.py

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If everything worked you should see a text welcoming you back, and if you’d like to use the
task given to Auto-GPT from the last run.

You can continue by inputting y or start a new task by inputting n .

That’s it! You can now start using Auto-GPT on your computer.

### Troubleshooting
### “Warning: Failed to parse AI output,
attempting to fix.” Loop
If you encounter this error, at the time of writing and in my experience, it’s best to just hit
Ctrl+Z to stop it and start over.
Error: Invalid JSON
{'thoughts': {'text': '...'}, 'command': {'name': 'browse_website',
'args': {'url': 'https://example.com'}}}

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4/12/23, 3:38 AM Getting Started with Auto-GPT for Beginners: Setup & Usage
PRODUCT FETCHER THOUGHTS:
REASONING:
CRITICISM:
Warning: Failed to parse AI output, attempting to fix.

If you see this warning frequently, it's likely that your prompt is
confusing the AI. Try changing it up slightly.
Failed to fix ai output, telling the AI.
NEXT ACTION: COMMAND = Error: ARGUMENTS = string indices must be
integers, not 'str'
SYSTEM: Command Error: returned: Unknown command Error:
Warning: Failed to parse AI output, attempting to fix.

If you see this warning frequently, it's likely that your prompt is
confusing the AI. Try changing it up slightly.
Failed to fix ai output, telling the AI.

## Conclusion
Stacking AI models on top of one another in order to complete more complex tasks does not
mean we’re about to see the emergence of artificial general intelligence let systems run
continuously and accomplish tasks with less human intervention and oversight. 
These examples don’t even show that GPT-4 is even necessarily “autonomous,” but that with
plug-ins and other techniques, it has greatly improved its ability to self-reflect and self-
critique, and introduces a new stage of prompt engineering that can result in more accurate
responses from the language model.
Hopefully this helped you get started with Auto-GPT. We’ll update this article or post new
ones with more information on how to use it.

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If you have any questions or feedback please feel free to let us know in the comments and
we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

## Resources & Acknowledgements

Developers Are Connecting Multiple AI Agents to Make More ‘Autonomous’ AI – Helped
me explain a few concepts about Auto-GPT

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