Summarising my investigations over the past few days:
When you are using ChatGPT, on the sidebar menu select GTPs. This brings up available domain specific or “custom GTPs”, and under the programming tab you will find several such trained custom GTPs.
Of these, both Code Copilot and Code know about Clearwin+, and I have the impression that Code Copilot has more knowledge of Clearwin+ than Code. These custom GPTs have been developed by third parties, who have made the resource available by this publishing route.
Such custom GTPs don’t represent global training — just a custom layer on top of the base model.
It requires a subscription to have the capability to create these in ChatGPT. The basic process is:
- ChatGPT Plus subscription (a recurring cost)
- Create a custom GPT, define purpose, upload data, refine instructions, test and refine, and publish, making it available for wider use. This process is like that in the PICKAXE video. I have not tried to do this.
Using PICKAXE, an individual can create a domain specific chat for their own use via for free (limited number of queries per month, limited training data uploads). They could share the link to the PICKAXE chat for use by others, but that consumes their available query budget. The main use of such a personal GTP is that it can be trained on a modest data set and it gives you a very quick way to query that data.
Alternatively, an individual ChatGTP user using the “free” service could upload training material during a chat, and if their setting for Memory is “ON”, they can tell the GTP to remember this information. Each time the response to a query is wrong, you can correct it and specifically tell the GTP to remember not to make that mistake again. This seems to work as it is possible to look at a text description of the information in memory, and I can see mistakes I have told it to remember and not make again! Such saved memories are not forgotten over time, and carry forward to the next chat session. This is available on the “free” service. Memory is “OFF” by default, meaning that everything is forgotten over time – even in the same chat.
Saved memory is only accessible to the user, i.e. it does not become widely available. ChatGPT does not learn globally from your individual chats.
So if an individual or organisation has a ChatGTP subscription, they can create a custom GPT for any subject, and if feeling philanthropic could also select to make the custom GTP publicly available.
For lightweight collaboration between users on ChatGTP:
- One person creates the Custom GPT and sets up a shared workspace (e.g. using Google Docs or similar).
- Team members contribute feedback, prompt examples, and intended behaviours.
- The owner manually updates the GPT's instructions or files with these contributions.
It’s a manual loop, but doable for lightweight collaboration.
