What’s a GPT?

I’m sure you know about ChatGPT and unless you’ve been living under a rock since COVID, you also know there’s an AI revolution going on right now. But have you ever noticed the “Explore GPTs?” option on the left side menu? (image below)

I asked ChatGPT to explain what it is and after a little prodding, she came up with this. (admittedly, I had to edit it a bit :()

The "GPTs" you can explore in the ChatGPT interface are like specialized mini versions of ChatGPT, each designed to do specific tasks really well. Think of them as different pre-programmed chat windows within ChatGPT. Each GPT is set up to be really good at a specific job, like coding, answering medical questions, or helping with legal advice. Some have unique features or ways of interacting with you to make them better suited for their specific task. Some of these GPTs are made by OpenAI, while others are created by people who want to share their customized versions. In essence, exploring GPTs lets you find the perfect helper for whatever specific task you need assistance with.

There are some really interesting GPTs out there but for today, let’s focus on a really useful one I found recently called “Video Summarizer” which looks like this.

If you’ve ever used a YouTube video in your class with your students, or if you use YouTube to study anything, you’re going to love this. Video Summarizer can take any YouTube video and effortlessly generate useful learning materials like summaries, quizzes, diagrams and more. And best of all, its free!

I tried it with one of my favourite content creators “Osmosis by Elsevier“. I used one of their videos called “Clinician’s Corner: Taking a good patient history“. All I did was paste in the YouTube URL and it generated this…

It’s pretty amazing all the things you can do by simply using the short commands like “E1” and “D” (shown above). I also used the “T” command to test my knowledge and here’s what it came up with.

Here are some of the limitations of Video Summarizer.

  1. it only works with YouTube
  2. it doesn’t work with YouTube videos that have captions turned off
  3. it’s ChatGPT so it’s prone to all the problems ChatGPT has (hallucinations, possible incorrect/unreliable content, errors etc.)

Despite these problems, Video Summarizer can be a big help for busy teachers and we hope you find it useful. There are lots of other amazing GPTs out there and the list is growing every day. There’s a whole new AI world out there just waiting to be explored!