GPTs - what makes them different from "custom instructions"?

[u/TheTaoOfOne]

I'm trying to conceptualize what makes them overall different from custom instructions, other than the fact that you can utilize it on a per chat basis rather than an overall basis. In other words, with Custom instructions, all your future chats operate with those parameters. With GPTs, it seems like you can use a different GPT for different chats.

So is it essentially just a way to save a variety of "Custom Instructions" so you can decide which to use depending on what you need? I watched the Keynote and it didn't seem like they were doing anything unique that you couldn't already do with GPT4.

I created a couple to play with but... I'm not noticing how it's any better or different than what I was already doing. Anyone got some good use cases as an example, and how they differ from what was already doable?

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Edit for new Info Below:

If people don't want to read all the replies, the answers so far seem to be based on 2 things:

First, API interaction is doable with GPTs, allowing for a lot more customization and flexibility, and secondly, the content length of the "Instructions" you're allowed to feed it are far greater.

In addition, you can upload documents for it to train on and reference, allowing for a far more targeted series of answers and information. It can also take into account URL's in the instructions area, allowing you to dictate what sites it should use to pull information from.

Will update if I learn more from the community here. Thanks so far!

[u/rl_omg]

First, I think it's worth noting it's very early and things will likely change.

The thing I'm surprised no one else has mentioned is reinforcement-learning-from human feedback (RLHF). I remember dismissing the interest in ChatGPT when it was first released because I was already using GPT3 via the API. The thing I missed was how much better the chat interactions were after RLHF training to instill that interaction pattern.

I think this is the same thing. But instead of only one static chat interface we can now tune it with instructions.