Explaining How to Program a GPT
Data → training → fine‑tuning → deployment. The essentials, explained as a cozy dialogue.
[Setting: Aiden’s study. Books and tea everywhere. Sebastian has a laptop open, but the screen shows Minesweeper.]
Aiden: Alright, Sebastian. Today, we’re going to learn how to program a GPT.
Sebastian: Excellent. First question: what does GPT stand for? “Great Potato Toaster”?
Aiden: (adjusts glasses) No. Generative Pre-trained Transformer. It’s an AI that generates text.
Sebastian: So… like me, but with spellcheck?
Aiden: (smiles) In a way. Except it processes billions of words, not Wikipedia rabbit holes at 3 a.m.
Sebastian: Ah, so it’s me after coffee. Got it. How do we start?
Aiden: Step one: data. You feed it a huge amount of text to learn from.
Sebastian: Huge amount… like a library?
Aiden: an unimaginably large number of books, articles, recipes, and cat memes, from across the internet.
Sebastian: (gasps) Even my 2010 tweets?
Aiden: Private posts, obscure personal content, and many copyrighted or obscure books aren’t used for training.
Sebastian: Then we must destroy it before it learns my Hot Pocket opinions.
Aiden: (laughs) Too late. Step two: training. You use GPUs to teach it patterns in language.
Sebastian: GPUs… those are the shiny rainbow fans inside gamer computers, right?
Aiden: Exactly. Except instead of playing Fortnite, they’re doing advanced math.
Sebastian: So, Fortnite for nerds. Understood.
Aiden: Step three: fine-tuning. You guide the model to respond in specific ways.
Sebastian: Like teaching a dog to sit, but instead of sitting, it writes Shakespearean insults?
Aiden: (smiling) Precisely.
Sebastian: Can I fine-tune mine to only answer with pirate slang?
Aiden: Technically, yes.
Sebastian: Then I shall create GPT-Arghhh. Patent pending.
Aiden: (sighs) Step four: deployment. You make it accessible to users through an app or website.
Sebastian: And charge $9.99 a month for “premium pirate mode.”
Aiden: Sebastian—
Sebastian: Plus $2 extra if it sings sea shanties!
Aiden: (facepalms) This was supposed to be educational.
Sebastian: It is! I just learned that I’m going to be rich, and you’ll be stuck explaining why my AI keeps calling people “landlubber.”
Aiden: (mutters) I should have taught him about Excel instead.
Explaining How to Program a GPT was written by Chaos & Camember dialogues Generator, ChatGPT 5, and Steven M. Tilley.