Jack and Steph's AI-Packing Keyboard Integrates OpenAI's ChatGPT via a Raspberry Pi Pico W
CircuitPython code originally written for a "haunted keyboard" at Halloween is now repurposed to turn a keyboard into an AI assistant.
Makers Jack and Steph, of Jack and Steph's Workshop, have released a kit for creating your own 40% mechanical keyboard with a difference: an integrated Raspberry Pi Pico W provides a direct line to OpenAI's ChatGPT large language model (LLM) for two-way conversations.
"This keyboard started as a project for the 2023 Halloween Hackfest, where it won third prize(!) in the form of the Haunted Keyboard," the makers explain. "In that iteration, the ChatGPT integration was a spooky entity that responded to all typing with cryptic predictions and observations. This Tindie iteration of the keyboard re-imagines the ChatGPT integration as a helpful assistant, but you can program it to be anything that you want it to be."
The compact keyboard is driven by a Raspberry Pi Pico W, a low-cost microcontroller board which includes a Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core microcontroller and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios. A custom CircuitPython firmware listens out for key presses and turns them into typed letters, like any other keyboard controller, complete with support for multiple layers to make up for the small number of keys — but that's only half its job.
On startup, the keyboard connects to OpenAI's ChatGPT — a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) based on large language model (LLM) technology, designed to respond to text-based prompts with its own writing. Anything typed on the keyboard is sent to both the local computer and ChatGPT simultaneously, and ChatGPT's response is then printed out over the keyboard's USB connection in turn.
The barebones keyboard kit, which includes a PCB and plate, is available on Jack and Steph's Tindie store now at $50, or $60 including a Raspberry Pi Pico W; buyers will need to provide their own Cherry MX-compatible keyswitches and keycaps, stabilizers, a USB cable, and case.
The source code for the original spooky variant is published to GitHub under the permissive MIT license; it includes a shortcut to disable the ChatGPT integration by pressing Esc three times.