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Writer's pictureGanesh Sharma

BlenderBot 3: Meta's State-of-the-Art Chatbot Prototype

Updated: Feb 12





Introduction

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has introduced a cutting-edge chatbot named BlenderBot 3 and has opened it to public interaction to gather feedback on its capabilities. Accessible through the web (currently limited to US residents), BlenderBot 3 boasts versatility in engaging in casual conversation as well as addressing queries akin to those posed to digital assistants, covering topics from healthy recipes to locating child-friendly amenities in urban areas.



Advancements in Large Language Models

This chatbot, a prototype, is the result of Meta's continued advancements in large language models (LLMs), building upon previous work with models like GPT-3. Utilizing vast datasets, BlenderBot mines text for statistical patterns to generate language. Despite their flexibility, LLMs are known to carry biases and sometimes provide inaccurate responses—a challenge Meta aims to tackle with BlenderBot.



Enhanced Capabilities and Challenges

One distinguishing feature of BlenderBot 3 is its ability to search the internet for information on specific topics and cite its sources in responses. By releasing the chatbot to the public, Meta intends to gather feedback to address these challenges. Users can report suspect responses and provide feedback, with Meta emphasizing efforts to minimize vulgar language and culturally insensitive remarks.



Learning Approach and Differentiation

Crucially, BlenderBot 3 differs from previous attempts at public AI chatbots like Microsoft's Tay. Unlike Tay, which learned in real-time from user interactions, BlenderBot 3 is a static model capable of remembering within-session conversation data but uses this information solely to enhance its performance later, without real-time learning.



Implementation

Hey there! Ever wondered how you can chat with a cutting-edge AI model using Python? Let's delve into it!


First off, we need to equip ourselves with the right tools. We'll be using BlenderBot, a powerful conversational AI model. To get started, we'll import two crucial components from the transformers library: BlenderbotTokenizer and BlenderbotForConditionalGeneration. Additionally, we'll need torch for some backend work.


from transformers import BlenderbotTokenizer, BlenderbotForConditionalGeneration
import torch
from IPython.display import HTML, display

Now that we've got our gear ready, let's load up BlenderBot and its tokenizer. This tokenizer helps BlenderBot understand our messages, while the model itself generates responses based on those inputs.


blender_model = BlenderbotForConditionalGeneration.from_pretrained("facebook/blenderbot-3B")
blender_tokenizer = BlenderbotTokenizer.from_pretrained("facebook/blenderbot-3B")

To make our chat experience visually appealing, we'll set up some HTML styling. This will create a neat display for our conversation, with different colors for messages from the user and the bot.


style = """
<style>
.chatbot {
  width: 400px;
  height: 500px;
  border: 1px solid #ddd;
  border-radius: 10px;
  overflow: scroll;
}
.message {
  padding: 10px;
  border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;
}
.from-user {
  background: #58b;
  color: white;
}
.from-bot {
  background: #eee;
  color: black;
}
</style>
"""

Now, let's kick off the chat session! We'll keep it going until the user decides to exit by typing 'q' or 'quit'. During each interaction, we'll prompt the user for input and then process it using BlenderBot's tokenizer. The model will then generate a response, which we'll display in our HTML-styled chat interface.


chat_log = ""
chat_display = display(HTML(f"{style}<div class='chatbot'>{chat_log}</div>"), display_id=True)

while True:
    message = input("INPUT: ")
    if message in ["", "q", "quit"]:
        break
    chat_log += f"<div class='message from-user'>{message}</div>"
    inputs = blender_tokenizer([message], return_tensors='pt')
    reply_ids = blender_model.generate(**inputs)
    reply = blender_tokenizer.batch_decode(reply_ids, skip_special_tokens=True)[0]
    chat_log += f"<div class='message from-bot'>{reply}</div>"
    chat_display.update(HTML(f"{style}<div class='chatbot'>{chat_log}</div>"))


Putting it All Together


from transformers import BlenderbotTokenizer, BlenderbotForConditionalGeneration
import torch
from IPython.display import HTML, display

blender_model = BlenderbotForConditionalGeneration.from_pretrained("facebook/blenderbot-3B")
blender_tokenizer = BlenderbotTokenizer.from_pretrained("facebook/blenderbot-3B")

style = """
<style>
.chatbot {
  width: 400px;
  height: 500px;
  border: 1px solid #ddd;
  border-radius: 10px;
  overflow: scroll;
}
.message {
  padding: 10px;
  border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;
}
.from-user {
  background: #58b;
  color: white;
}
.from-bot {
  background: #eee;
  color: black;
}
</style>
"""

chat_log = ""
chat_display = display(HTML(f"{style}<div class='chatbot'>{chat_log}</div>"), display_id=True)

while True:
    message = input("INPUT: ")
    if message in ["", "q", "quit"]:
        break
    chat_log += f"<div class='message from-user'>{message}</div>"
    inputs = blender_tokenizer([message], return_tensors='pt')
    reply_ids = blender_model.generate(**inputs)
    reply = blender_tokenizer.batch_decode(reply_ids, skip_special_tokens=True)[0]
    chat_log += f"<div class='message from-bot'>{reply}</div>"
    chat_display.update(HTML(f"{style}<div class='chatbot'>{chat_log}</div>"))

Output




Pros of BlenderBot 3

  1. Advanced Natural Language Understanding: BlenderBot 3 leverages state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques to engage in nuanced and contextually relevant conversations with users.

  2. Versatility: The chatbot is designed to handle a wide range of topics, from casual chitchat to more informational queries, making it suitable for various user needs and preferences.

  3. Transparency and Accountability: BlenderBot 3 is capable of citing its sources when providing information, enhancing transparency and allowing users to verify the accuracy of responses.

  4. Feedback Mechanism: Users have the opportunity to provide feedback on the chatbot's responses, enabling Meta to iteratively improve its performance and address any issues or shortcomings.



Cons of BlenderBot 3

  1. Biases and Inaccuracies: Like other large language models, BlenderBot 3 may inadvertently reproduce biases present in its training data and occasionally provide inaccurate or misleading responses.

  2. Limited Availability: As of now, access to BlenderBot 3 is restricted to residents of the United States, limiting its reach and potential user base.

  3. Privacy Concerns: Users who opt-in to have their data collected may have concerns about privacy and data security, especially considering the sensitive nature of conversational data.

  4. Dependency on Internet Search: BlenderBot 3 relies on internet search capabilities to provide information on specific topics. While this enhances its knowledge base, it also introduces dependency on external sources and potential issues with data quality or relevance.



And that's the end! 🎉 We've finished our BlenderBot Introduction and Implementation Guide journey. We really hope this guide helped you learn useful stuff.


Now that you understand BlenderBot, you've figured out how to use it to have cool conversations. By trying it out with Python and the transformers library, you've learned how to set it up and chat with it.


Try New Things, Do Cool Stuff As you move forward, don't be afraid to try new things and use BlenderBot in your own projects.


Tell Us What You Think Thanks for coming along on this journey! If you have questions, feedback, or fun stories to share, let us know. Your ideas help make natural language processing better. Have fun chatting with BlenderBot! 🤖💬



If you require assistance with the implementation of chatbot-related projects, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

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