New GPT-3 Capabilities: Edit & Insert
March 23, 2022
We’ve released new versions of GPT-3 and Codex which can edit or insert content into existing text, rather than just completing existing text. These new capabilities make it practical to use the OpenAI API to revise existing content, such as rewriting a paragraph of text or refactoring code. This unlocks new use cases and improves existing ones; for example, insertion is already being piloted in GitHub Copilot with promising early results.
GPT-3 and Codex have traditionally added text to the end of existing content, based on the text that came before. Whether working with text or code, writing is more than just appending—it’s an iterative process where existing text is revised. GPT-3 and Codex can now edit text, changing what’s currently there or adding text to the middle of content.
Inserting into the middle of text
The new insert capability adds contextually relevant text in the middle of existing content. Providing future context to the model can improve the quality of completions for applications such as writing long-form text, transitioning between paragraphs, following an outline, or guiding the model toward an ending.
Insert is particularly useful for writing code. In fact, Codex was our original motivation for developing this capability, since in software development we typically add code to the middle of an existing file where code is present before and after the completion. In the example above, the model successfully completes the missing function prune, while connecting to code already written. We also add a docstring and missing imports, which is not possible without knowing the code that comes after. In GitHub Copilot, Insert is currently being piloted with early promising results.
The insert capability is available in the API today in beta, as part of the completions endpoint and via a new interface in Playground. The capability can be used with the latest versions of GPT-3 and Codex, text-davinci-002 and code-davinci-002. Pricing is the same as previous versions of Davinci.
Editing existing text
A meaningful part of writing text and code is spent editing existing content. We’ve released a new endpoint in beta called edits that changes existing text via an instruction, instead of completing it.
