How to make your own AI bot with Poe

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.

Poe makes it easy for anyone to create an AI bot in a few minutes. No coding is required: Just fill in a few fields instructing your bot to answer questions in a particular way. It might answer queries in Shakespearean English or translate text into emojis. It’s free in any browser at poe.com or on iOS.

How to create an AI bot in three minutes

  1. Visit poe.com/create_bot and set up an account. You can use your phone number, email address, or a Google/Apple account. 
  2. Name your bot to signal its focus. The name can be 4 to 15 letters long.
  3. Write the bot’s foundational instruction. This will be its operating credo. Your prompt should tell the bot how to approach any query it receives. Advanced users can reference Poe’s Github tutorial.  
  4. Optional: Add an image as your bot’s profile pic. You can use Nightcafe, Fotor, Canva, or This Person Does Not Exist to create an AI-generated face. 
  5. Test your bot with sample questions. Revise its foundational instructions if the replies don’t meet your expectations. 

Bots I created

  • EthicalJourno is designed to draw on the ethical principles of the Society of Professional Journalists. Bot face made with NightCafe.
  • 2ndGradeTeacher simplifies complex subjects for a 7-year-old. Face made with Fotor.
  • BotanyBlair responds to the name of any plant with interesting info along with a two-line poem about the plant. Face made with Canva.
  • 6wordsummary sums up anything in six words. Face made with Unsplash.
  • MemoryAid provides mnemonic devices for anything you want to recall.
  • FrenchGuru translates text into French and teaches you along the way.

My failed bot

MissingO was my attempt at a bot that answers all queries without using the letter O. It frequently erred. I recreated it as AvoidtheLetterY. It still fails.

How Poe works

Your bot relies on an existing AI engine for its intelligence. Here’s Poe’s explanation. You can choose a base model from OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT; or Anthropic, a competitor that raised $450 million in funding this week from Google and others. Decades of artificial intelligence research have led to this moment. 

More Poe bots

In addition to making your own bot, you can explore and use others’ bots. 

  • LieDetector will poke holes in your logic 
  • EmbellishBot will turn any statement into flowery language
  • Midjourney helps you word your requests for AI-generated images

Character.ai, an alternative to Poe

Character.ai also lets you make your own bots. It has a library of famous TV, movie, and game characters you can chat with, along with pop stars and business people like Elon Musk and Bill Gates. You can use it in a web browser or, as of May 23, on iOS or Android. You can construct a character in a minute. In advanced mode, you can customize a character’s style and script phrases for it. 

Like Poe, Character.ai also has a library of existing bots you can chat with. I messaged first with Hyperglot to practice Italian without torturing a native speaker. In addition to bantering, it offered tips for learning more, including YouTube channels and podcasts. 

advertisement

Beware of shallow, lying bots

I chatted with a George Orwell bot. Its answers were believable until I asked it for reading recommendations to learn more about Orwell’s influence on other writers. The bot then gave me made-up book titles, none of which existed.

Making a bot on Character.ai

It’s easy to create a bot, but hard to make it great. To test Character.ai, I made a Michel de Montaigne bot. It took me a few minutes to write a brief intro, phrasing it as I imagined Montaigne might if he were alive. I’m skeptical about my bot’s understanding of the great essayist’s writings, though it does appear to have at least a rudimentary knowledge. 

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.

View the rest of the story here

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aileen Cannon—Judge Hearing Trump’s Documents Case—Reportedly Made ‘Significant’ Mistakes In June Trial

Topline U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s trial for retaining White House documents, made “key errors” during a criminal trial in a separate case earlier this summer, Reuters reports , raising additional questions about the Trump-appointed judge’s credibility as she prepares to oversee the ex-president’s May 2024 trial. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, then a nominee for the position, speaks remotely during a ... [+] Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing on July 29, 2020, in Washington. Associated Press Key Facts Cannon presided over a trial in June for defendant William Spearman, who was facing charges of child exploitation and advertising and distributing child pornography. The judge refused to allow members of the public, including Spearman’s family members, into the courtroom during jury selection, according to a court transcript reported by Reuters, citing a lack of space in the courtroom, de...
Read more

POV: Researchers often undercount how much visual misinformation is on Facebook

How much misinformation is on Facebook? Several studies have found that the amount of misinformation on Facebook is  low  or that the problem has  declined   over   time . This previous work, though, missed most of the story. We are a  communications researcher , a  media and public affairs researcher , and a  founder of a digital intelligence company . We conducted a study that shows that  massive amounts of misinformation have been overlooked  by other studies. The biggest source of misinformation on Facebook is not links to fake news sites but something more basic: images. And a large portion of posted pictures are misleading. For instance, on the eve of the 2020 election, nearly one out of every four political image posts on Facebook contained misinformation. Widely shared falsehoods included QAnon conspiracy theories, misleading statements about the Black Lives Matter movement, and unfounded claims about Joe Biden’s son H...
Read more

10 Best End of the World Love Stories From TV and Movies

From the unforgettable The Walking Dead television series to the record-breaking The Last of Us show inspired by the popular video game, people love dystopian-apocalypse TV and movies. Even more than that, viewers love a romance against the tragic backdrop of the end of the world. RELATED: ' Knock at the Cabin' and 9 Other Small-Scale Apocalyptic Movies Throughout the years there have been just as many iconic couples in apocalyptic media as there has been apocalyptic media. From Rick and Michonne to Bill and Frank, there’s a meant-to-be couple to swoon over in between those nail-biting moments of anticipation while watching a dystopian movie or show. COLLIDER VIDEO OF THE DAY 10 Penny and Dodge, 'Seeking a Friend for the End of the World' (2012) Image via Focus Features A seemingly mismatched couple who find each other as the world is facing impending destruction by asteroid, Penny ( Kiera Knightley ) and her neighbor Dodge ( Steve Carrell ) begin to travel...
Read more