How to install and run Auto-GPT on Raspberry Pi

ChatGPT, a language model-based chatbot, has been popular since its launch in November 2022 by OpenAI. Currently, it has more than 100 million users. The platform generated 1.6 billion visits in June 2023 alone.

The AI chatbot offers several applications, such as language translation, summarization, and content generation. However, it’s not a perfect substitute for information or content. ChatGPT does have shortcomings, and users should be wary of inaccurate, irrelevant, misleading, or false responses.

It’s important to remember that its information is derived from the Internet and is only as accurate as that content. ChatGPT uses web scraping to extract data from websites by using automated tools. This means the chatbot scans the web for relevant information and stores it in its database.

One example of potentially misleading information is on the ideal waist-to-weight ratio for males. ChatGPT suggested the waist circumference for a man of 80 kg be less than 16 inches. It’s unreasonable (and unhealthy) to suggest an ideal measurement for every male 80 kg or less without knowledge of other traits.

Of course, ChatGPT is an AI model that’s continually undergoing training. So, please fact-check all of its answers. Some responses are so well articulated that they might sound correct but might not be. Always verify the answers.

Automation
One interesting feature ChatGPT does offer is that it’s a decent tool for automation. For instance, what if you could use the platform to automate tasks on a Raspberry Pi?

Several APIs and other tools use ChatGPT to support software applications with AI. Auto-GPT is one such API. Auto-GPT is easy to install Auto-GPT on Raspberry Pi and be used to automate tasks, including programming.

Again, this comes with a caveat: ChatGPT lacks a complete understanding of problem-solving and programming. It’s simply a generative model based on natural language processing (NLP) that puts out text based on probability. So, it’s unable to distinguish facts from other content that happens to be online, including programming language.

Nevertheless, it’s worth testing its automation capabilities. Auto-GPT can be used for a variety of tasks. In this article, we’ll discuss Auto-GPT and explain how to install it on Raspberry Pi and use it.

What is Auto-GPT?
Auto-GPT is an open-source, autonomous AI agent that uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 or GPT-3.5 to accomplish predefined goals. The experimental project aims to make GPT-4 fully autonomous. The program is driven by GPT-4 and chains together large language model (LLM) thoughts to automatically achieve goals set by the user.

When a user gives a task to Auto-GPT, the program breaks the task into smaller subtasks. The subtasks are ordered appropriately and executed one by one. The program uses the Internet to gather information and other resources to complete tasks.

Why use Auto-GPT?
Auto-GPT can be used for several different tasks, such as to:

Read through code and make suggestions for improvements
Debug code
Write emails
Summarizing documents
Create presentation slides
Translating language
Researching information

Components required
To use Auto-GPT on Raspberry Pi, set up your Raspberry Pi board as a desktop computer. To do so, you’ll need the following…

1. Raspberry Pi 3/4
2. Micro-SD Card
3. Power adaptor for Raspberry Pi
4. WiFi or Ethernet cable
5. USB keyboard and mouse
6. Display monitor and HDMI cable

Prerequisites
Before installing Auto-GPT on Raspberry Pi (RPi), copy the latest Raspbian image on a MicroSD card. Insert the Micro-SD in the card slot of the RPi board. Then, install the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS. Now, it’s time for Auto-GPT.

Get an API key for OpenAI
You’ll need an API key from OpenAI to use Auto-GPT on RPi. For a small fee, the API permits interaction with ChatGPT.

Follow the steps below to receive an API key…

1. Sign up for an account on OpenAI.com. The sign-up can be done with any email ID. Afterwards, login to your account by entering your email and registered credentials.

After logging in, you’ll see the following…

2. Click on the API tab and below page appears.

3. Click on the profile icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. A drop-down menu will appear. In the menu, look for ‘View API keys’ option and click on it.

You’ll see this page next…

4. To generate a new API key for Auto-GPT, click on ‘Create new secret key’ button. A pop-up window will appear.

5. Enter a suitable name for your new API key. The name will help differentiate this API key from others generated by your account. Next, click on ‘Create secret key’ to generate the API key. A pop-up window will come up with the key. Copy this API key and save it. You’ll need it later. Afterwards, click ‘Done.’

6. You can view your API key’s usage data from the dashboard. Simply click on the ‘Usage’ option, which is located on the left-hand sidebar of the screen. A graph will show the consumption of the key in USD.

Setting up Raspberry Pi for Auto-GPT
Once you have an API key from OpenAI, you can prepare Raspberry Pi for Auto-GPT. It’s important to first make sure all of RPi’s packages and package lists are up to date. To do so, open RPi’s Terminal and execute the following commands to update and upgrade its packages.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Next, install the packages required to install and run Auto-GPT on RPi. Two packages are a must: Python and Git. Git is used to get the latest version of Auto_GPT and Python runs it.

To install ‘git,’ execute the following command in the Terminal:

sudo apt-get install git

To install ‘python’, execute the following command in the Terminal:

sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip

Now, we’re ready to get the latest version of Auto-GPT using the ‘git’ package. To do so, execute the below command in the Terminal.

git clone https://github.com/Torantulino/Auto-GPT.git

Installing Auto-GPT
To install Auto-GPT, go to the directory where you’ve cloned the Auto-GPT code in the Raspberry Pi. The directory can be changed by executing this command:

cd Auto-GPT

Once complete, you can download and install the Python packages required by Auto-GPT. They can all be installed through a requirements file that can be run through Pip. After they have been moved to the Auto-GPT directory, execute the below command in the Terminal to install the packages required by Auto-GPT.

pip install -r requirements.txt

Setting OpenAI key for Auto-GPT
After installing Auto-GPT on Raspberry Pi, you must configure Auto-GPT with your API key. Copy the ‘.env’ template file so it can be further edited. Execute the following command in the Terminal to copy the template file.

cp .env.template .env

Open the copied ‘.env’ file in the NANO text editor by executing the below command in the Terminal.

nano .env

In the environment configuration file (i.e. ‘.env’ file), search for the parameter ‘OPEN_API_KEY.’ Replace the text, ‘your-openai-api-key,’ with your own API key.

OPEN_API_KEY= <api-key>

After entering the key, save and close the file by pressing Ctrl+X followed by Y and then the Enter key.

Now, create an empty file named, ‘auto-gpt.json,’ in the same directory where Auto-GPT is installed. To create this file, execute the following command in the Terminal.

touch auto-gpt.json

Using Auto-GPT
To use Auto-GPT on Raspberry Pi, go to the directory where Auto-GPT is installed. Execute the below command in the Terminal to launch Auto-GPT.

python -m autogpt

When you first launch Auto-GPT, it automatically generates a set of goals and creates a project name. This is overridden by entering ‘—manual,’ so you can set goals manually. Afterwards, you’ll have to enter a prompt to execute a user-defined task.

While executing the task, Auto-GPT might prompt you to run a command. To do so, press ‘Y’ and the enter key. Otherwise, type ‘N’ to abort the execution of referred command.

Conclusion
With Auto-GPT, you can automate several tasks on Raspberry Pi through ChatGPT. You can use this tool to automatically respond to emails, summarize documents from Internet, gather information, host presentations, or translate languages. It’s also possible to automate these tasks within a Python script.