What’s this DocBot all about? Well, in short, it’s an AI-based bot that puts the end user, developer and system administrator documentation into a CiviCRM extension that allows fast, efficient Q&A style searches. Basically, it puts the entire CiviCRM documentation at your fingertips, providing answers and how-to style guidance in-app.
Don’t worry… the docs are NOT going away! In fact, they are as important as ever!
What documentation is the bot trained on?
DocBot has been specifically trained on the CiviCRM documentation, i.e. the CiviCRM User Guide, System Administrator Guide, and Developer Guide. Through the use of artificial intelligence technology, DocBot is able to provide users with easy access to information sourced directly from these essential guides.
So, whether you're a beginner looking to navigate the platform or an experienced developer seeking in-depth technical insights, DocBot has you covered with accurate and up-to-date information straight from the primary CiviCRM documentation sources.
Multilingual Capabilities
Unlike the documentation, DocBot can respond in a range of different languages. While native speakers will undoubtedly find some imperfections in the language used, our testing indicates that the responses are conversational and quite good. Is it perfect? Well, no, but neither is the English I’ve used in this blog post. :D
This multilinguality (is that even a word?) ensures a seamless experience for non-english speakers or for users that simply want a response in their preferred language. This capability enhances accessibility and usability for a diverse global user base, making it a valuable tool for anyone navigating the intricacies of CiviCRM.
Powered by ChatGPT 4 Turbo Claude Haiku
Behind the scenes, DocBot harnesses the capabilities of ChatGPT 4 Turbo, the latest and most advanced language model from OpenAI, Claude Haiku. Based on tests, this version provides the most consistent and accurate responses. This ensures that users receive accurate information based on the context of their queries related to the CiviCRM documentation.
About that Monthly Retraining
We retrain DocBot monthly to ensure that it remains up-to-date with the latest improvements and changes to the documentation. This ensures that DocBot captures revisions and/or new information and is better prepared to provide the most accurate and relevant information available.
AI technologies are moving quickly, and we’re doing our best to stay on top of the various models and updates to them. During monthly retraining, we test the various language models to try to understand which provides the best, most consistent responses.
Built by the CiviCRM Core Team
DocBot and its extension are developed and provided by the CiviCRM Core Team. It is experimental in the sense that we’re putting it out there in the wild to see if it does, in fact, enhance overall user experience. Again, it’s not intended to replace the existing documentation or access to it. Instead, it acts as a supplementary resource, offering quick references and support.
DocBot is available online and in-app via an installable extension.
Comments
* Could Docbot also be trained on https://civicrm.stackexchange.com?
* It'd also be good to train it on https://lab.civicrm.org/extensions - lots of extensions don't have enough docs to justify publishing to docs.c.o, but it'd be good to ingest the README files there.
* I understand GPT-4 can "understand" code - perhaps it could also be trained on the codebase itself?
The current version is not very helpful for any type of troubleshooting. But the potential is game changing - e.g. customer support issues, problem resolution and more.
I think that StackExchange training would be a huge improvement as well as gitlab issues, etc. etc.
How about a major push with Make it Happen. I'll put up $1000 as a starting point.
I've been thinking about this @dtarrant but I'm not sure how feasible it is. I think it's doable if we identified a "top list" of questions on SE and contained it to that. Obviously it could change/grow, but I think turning it loose might result in unexpected answers. I'll test some this weekend.
@JonGold yes, I think that possible. I'll test it there as well and follow back up with both of you directly.
As of Aug 8, the Doc Bot should be pulling from Stack Exchange as well.