---
type: source
title: "ChatGPT is the GIFT that keeps on GIVING - Introducing Auto-GPT"
description: "Auto-GPT wraps GPT-4 in an autonomous loop that decomposes a goal into self-generated steps, executes them with tool use and memory, and self-criticizes along the way, an early glimpse of agentic AI."
youtube_id: JeHObBsyKKM
url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeHObBsyKKM
slug: chatgpt-is-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-introducing-auto-gpt
published: 2023-04-18
duration: "0:16:48"
recency_rank: 197
raw: "../raw/chatgpt-is-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-introducing-auto-gpt.md"
tags: [auto-gpt, agentic-coding, self-criticism, memory-systems]
created: 2026-07-21
updated: 2026-07-21
---

# ChatGPT is the GIFT that keeps on GIVING - Introducing Auto-GPT

Cole introduces Auto-GPT, an open-source experiment that turns GPT-4 from a single-turn chatbot into an autonomous agent: you give it a role and a handful of goals, and it generates its own steps to reach them, executes those steps, and keeps going. He frames this as the "sparks of AGI," an AI that can define and pursue its own subgoals, and walks through the trivially simple setup (Python 3.8+, an OpenAI API key, git clone, rename the .env.template) plus optional add-ons like a Pinecone vector database for long-term memory and ElevenLabs for spoken output.

The core of the video is a live demo where he builds "Twitter-GPT" and gives it three goals around growing a Twitter account. The agent thinks step by step, prints its thoughts, reasoning, and plan, and critically self-criticizes to check its own work before proposing each next action. It browses Twitter, falls back to a Google search when that yields nothing (overcoming GPT's September-2021 training cutoff via internet access), analyzes popular accounts, even writes and refactors code to generate a poll, and finally writes a text file of concrete steps to grow a Twitter account.

Throughout, Cole surfaces recurring lessons: run in step-by-step mode so you can authorize each action and abort if the agent does something dumb or dangerous (rather than continuous mode); "garbage in, garbage out," good prompts matter, and here the AI even generates better prompts for itself; and the whole thing is experimental and imperfect (it loops, it stays too general) but is "the start of something big" that will compound as models and tooling improve.

## Concepts covered

- [Agentic Coding](../concepts/agentic-coding.md)
- [Reasoning Models](../concepts/reasoning-models.md)
- [Human in the Loop](../concepts/human-in-the-loop.md)
- [Self-Criticism Prompting](../concepts/self-criticism-prompting.md)
- [Effective Prompting](../concepts/effective-prompting.md)
- [Tool Calling](../concepts/tool-use.md)
- [Memory Systems](../concepts/memory-systems.md)

## Entities

- [OpenAI](../entities/organizations/openai.md)
- [ChatGPT](../entities/tools/chatgpt.md)
- [Pinecone](../entities/tools/pinecone.md)
- [ElevenLabs](../entities/tools/elevenlabs.md)
- [GitHub](../entities/tools/github.md)
- [Python](../entities/tools/python.md)
- [Cole Medin](../entities/people/cole-medin.md)

## Key moments

- **[0:00:37]** Defines Auto-GPT: "Auto" = autonomous; you give it a task and it generates and executes its own steps
- **[0:01:09]** Frames Auto-GPT as "sparks of AGI," AI that thinks, acts, and sets its own goals
- **[0:02:26]** Walks through setup: Python 3.8+, OpenAI API key, optional Pinecone (memory) and ElevenLabs (voice)
- **[0:04:24]** Continuous mode vs. step-by-step authorization; step mode lets you oversee and abort risky actions
- **[0:05:45]** Live demo begins: defines Twitter-GPT's role and three goals
- **[0:08:54]** Agent self-criticizes to think from different angles before choosing the next action
- **[0:09:58]** Agent browses Twitter, then falls back to Google search, overcoming GPT's Sept-2021 cutoff via internet access
- **[0:11:47]** Agent generates its own improved prompt for GPT ("garbage in, garbage out")
- **[0:13:29]** Final output: a text file of concrete steps to grow a Twitter account

## Transcript

[Raw transcript](../raw/chatgpt-is-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-introducing-auto-gpt.md)
