OpenAI Function Calling: A Game-Changer for AI Agents

OpenAI released function calling this week, which promises to give a significant boost in performance to AI agents. In addition to this, the release shows some notable improvements in consistency that make it essential for tasks such as finding contact information, writing code, and serious research on a topic fully autonomously.

If you missed it, OpenAI put out a blog post explaining what function calling is and how it works. Function calling is like asking a chef in a restaurant to cook a specific dish for you from the menu. The chef represents the function, the restaurant is the program, and the dish is the task. The goal of function calling is to make it easier for developers to perform outside tasks, such as APIs, and other external sources.

Exploring Function Calling

Using function calling is quite simple. Here is how it works:

1. Define the functions that need to be called in the Python code. For example, you could define functions like organic traffic from Google, scrape website function, and a send email function.
2. Name each function and include a function description. This is a vital step as it will help the AI agents to understand the function more clearly.
3. Add a type for each function, for instance- object, string, and search query.
4. Define the properties of the functions such as the search query for fetching the organic results, saving content to a file, and opening the file and email. This step creates consistency among each added function.
5. Use the function in your script and run it.

By taking these steps, we can perform complex tasks such as calling APIs with much ease. Function calling is much more efficient and faster as compared to manual coding by developers.

Benefits and Implementation

One of the benefits of using OpenAI's function calling is that it enables the agents to call multiple functions at once. For instance, you can add many functions to an agent's code and change the number of functions based on the agent's environment. This capability enables seamless performance of tasks by the agents.

Furthermore, the function calling feature adds a secure layer to the AI agents, enabling them to maintain high-level security when performing tasks. This means that only the specified functions are called, and the agents don't access unauthorized data.

Examples of Function Calling

Let's take a look at an example Python code and see how function calling works. In the code below, we have defined two functions: get_organic_results and scrape_URL.

def get_organic_results(query):
    """
    Get the organic search results from a specific query.
    """
    results = google_scraping(query)
    return results

def scrape_URL(url):
    """
    Scrape content from web pages.
    """
    content = web_scraping(url)
    return content

In this example, we have added two functions, one to perform a Google search, and the other to scrape web pages. We named each function and included a description of their function. Here's how the prompt will look after adding the functions:

SYSTEM PROMPT:
Here are the following functions:
- `get_organic_results(query)` - Get the organic search results from a specific query
- `scrape_URL(url)` - Scrape content from web pages

Once named, we can use the functions using Auto. This feature makes it more manageable to maintain consistent code across the AI agents.

For example, let's say we set a goal for the agent to find contact information about Chris from the YouTube channel "All About AI." Here are the steps to follow:

1. Find and scrape the All About AI website.
2. Extract the email address from the website.
3. Write an email to Chris requesting an interview.
4. Save the message in a file.
5. Shutdown after completing the task.

Once we have defined the necessary functions, we can add them to the agent's code and then execute the task with the help of OpenAI's function calling. The agents can carry out all the tasks and shut down automatically, allowing for timely delivery of results.

Another example where function calling can be useful is in finding a good sushi restaurant in San Francisco. Here's how the process would work:

1. Use Google to find a website with a list of the best sushi restaurants in San Francisco.
2. Scrape the content of each restaurant's page, including reviews.
3. Save the results to a file for future reference.

By using function calling, the AI agents can quickly navigate the internet to complete complex tasks, such as finding sushi restaurants with the best reviews.

Conclusion

OpenAI's function calling is the new game-changer for developers and AI enthusiasts. The feature's simplicity and ease of use make it ideal for coding AI agents to perform various tasks outside their programming. Function calling provides a significant boost in performance, consistency, and efficiency. By automating tasks and adding security layers, function calling makes it easier to maintain seamless AI-agent performance. As AI continues to grow and evolve, function calling promises to take it even further.

Are you interested in taking advantage of function calling? Let us know in the comments!