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New technological advances are always in the spotlight. Data science and its applications have been in the spotlight for many years. 2023 is off to a strong start with OpenAI releasing his AI-based chatbot, his ChatGPT. ChatGPT’s release has been a blast and everyone is using it in different ways, pushing the boundaries of AI and chatbots themselves. It has also inspired other companies like Notion to build better chatbots to challenge and overcome ChatBGT.
Many data scientists, both novices and experts, as well as enterprises, have built their own versions of ChatGPT to increase their knowledge and experience in building AI-based chatbots, or to challenge and grow their skills. I tried the idea of If you’re reading this, it means you’ve also thought about creating a chatbot like ChatGPT, or are curious about what it takes to create such a tool.
This article reviews what you need to know to build your version of ChatGPT. But before diving into the technical knowledge required to develop a chatbot, let’s briefly discuss what it takes to build a chatbot.
Since we are looking to build a chatbot like ChatBGT, a web-based chatbot, there are two parts to consider when designing and building a chatbot. The front end (the chatbot’s appearance), what the user interacts with, the core of the chatbot (backend), or what is called the brain of the chatbot.
Dive into a few courses that give you the knowledge you need to build AI-based chatbots that look and work great. We then suggest courses for each element so that you have all the tools you need to build ChatGPT.
We’ll start with what you need to build the look and feel of your chatbot. The more initiative your chatbot has, the better the user experience. So what do you know about creating great chatbot interfaces?
UI design
The appearance of a web page has two aspects: general aesthetics and design intuitive design. The feel of a web page (chatbot in our case) is UI (user interface) design.
Understanding the basic principles of user interface design is essential when building a chatbot. This course from CalArts teaches you the basics of UI design.
UX design
A beautiful design with color is nice, but if it’s hard to work with, looks don’t matter much. This is where it helps to know the basics of UX (user experience). UX is the art of designing applications that are easy to navigate and use, providing a better experience for everyone who uses them. For example, if you want to build a good chatbot, it has to look good, be easy and intuitive. CalArts also offers courses to give you the knowledge you need to build good UX chatbots.
HTML and CSS
I’m trying to build a web base, so I need to know how to build a web application. This means that you need to know HTML and CSS. Of course, today there are many services available that help you develop web pages without writing HTML or CSS.
But knowing them will give you more control over what you’re building and the details of it. This course from CodeAcademy will help you learn the basics of HTML and CSS. Alternatively, you can check out this guided project on Coursera and complete it in under two hours.
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Now that you’ve designed the look of your chatbot, it’s time to build its brain. I want to build an AI-based chatbot, so I need to master the basics of data science, programming, and AI. ChatGPT’s brains can be divided into his two sections: Data Science Fundamentals and Chatbot Core. Now let’s look at each one in a little more detail.
Fundamentals of data science
programming and mathematics
Data science and all its applications are based on knowledge of mathematics (probability theory and linear algebra) and programming. However, if you already know the basics of data science, you can skip this step and move on to the meat of building the heart of the chatbot section.
If you’re interested in starting your journey into data science applications with ChatGPT, this course by Harvard University will get you on your feet by giving you the math and programming knowledge you need to start building chatbots. Helps!
machine learning
Once you’re comfortable with writing code and have some understanding of mathematics, you can move on to machine learning, one of the fundamental building blocks of data science applications. Machine learning is a collection of algorithms and techniques used to make computers smarter. Learn the basics of machine learning with this course from Stanford University.
Chatbot core
Chatbots are a category of data science, or natural language processing, aimed at creating systems for users to converse. Chatbots can be divided into three categories based on their main features:
- A simple NLP chatbot.
- Entailment-based chatbot
- intelligence-based chatbot
The first type is a basic chatbot that conducts simple conversations with users. The second type is often used to address user issues. These are typically support bots for most websites. Finally, the third type simulates and predicts how the user will interact with her UI. If you look closely at ChatGPT, you can see that these three types of him are mixed. To build an AI-based chatbot, you need to know natural language processing (NLP), AI fundamentals, and chatbot building fundamentals.
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natural language processing
This Udemy course will familiarize you with NLP, its meaning, fundamentals, and various applications including chatbots.
Chatbot basics
Covering the basics of NLP is the first step towards building a chatbot. Once you’ve got the basics down, you’ll primarily use this course to learn more about how to design and build chatbots.
artificial intelligence
For chatbots to feel real and engage in engaging conversations with users, they must be intelligent or mimic human intelligence. AI is used for that purpose. Therefore, we need to learn how to apply AI techniques to chatbots. This course from DeepLearning.AI covers the basics of AI and how to use it to build chatbots.
ChatGPT has been getting a lot of media attention lately for good reasons. This clearly shows how powerful the technology is. It proves that we can design great tools that make our lives easier and at the same time challenge us to be better.
ChatGPT has aroused the curiosity of so many people, both technical and outsiders, to know how to build such a tool. As you may be, building a chatbot at its core is easier than it sounds.
In this article, we’ve covered what you need to know to build a chatbot like ChatBGT. So next weekend, try building a chatbot. Chatbot results may compete with ChatGPT!
Sarah Metwari PhD. Candidate at Keio University researching methods of testing and debugging quantum circuits. I am his IBM research intern and Qiskit advocate helping build a more quantum future. She is also a writer for Medium, Built-in, She Can Code, and KDN, where she writes articles on programming, data, science, and technical topics. She is also the leader of the Woman Who Code Python International Chapter, a rail enthusiast, traveller, and photography enthusiast.
