---
title: "Stanford Scientists Pretty Much Cloned OpenAI’s GPT for a Measly $600"
description: "With a silly name and an even sillier startup cost, Stanford's Alpaca ChatGPT clone costs only $600 and shows how easy OpenAI's may be to replicate."
date: "2023-03-20"
modified: "2023-03-22"
authors:
  - name: "Noor Al-Sibai"
    job_title: "Senior Staff Writer"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/stanford-gpt-clone-alpaca"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
  - "OpenAI"
tags:
  - "chatgpt"
  - "OpenAI"
  - "stanford"
  - "the digest"
---

# Stanford Scientists Pretty Much Cloned OpenAI’s GPT for a Measly $600

![With a silly name and an even sillier startup cost, Stanford's Alpaca ChatGPT clone costs only $600 and shows how easy OpenAI's may be to replicate.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/stanford-gpt-clone-alpaca.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Getty / Futurism\</em\>*

## Clone Wars

*Update: Stanford pulled this project down over concerns including its penchant for producing misinformation. [More here...](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/stanford-pulls-down-chatgpt-clone>)*

With a silly name and an even sillier startup cost, Stanford's Alpaca GPT clone costs only $600 to build and is a prime example of how easy software like OpenAI's may be to replicate.

In a blurb [spotted by *New Atlas*](<https://newatlas.com/technology/stanford-alpaca-cheap-gpt/>), Stanford's Center for Research on Foundation Models [announced last week](<https://crfm.stanford.edu/2023/03/13/alpaca.html>) that its researchers had "fine-tuned" Meta’s LLaMA 7B large language model (LLM) using OpenAI's GPT API — and for a bargain basement price.

The result is the Alpaca AI, which exhibits "many behaviors similar to OpenAI’s text-davinci-003," otherwise known as [GPT-3.5](<https://platform.openai.com/docs/model-index-for-researchers>), the LLM that undergirds the firm's internet-breaking ChatGPT chatbot.

In its shockingly simple budgetary breakdown, the Stanford CRFM scientists said they spent "less than $500" on OpenAI's API and "less than $100" on LLaMA, based on the amount of time the researcher spent training Alpaca using the proprietary models.

When evaluating Alpaca against other models, the Stanford researchers said they were "quite surprised" to find that their model and OpenAI's "have very similar performance," with Alpaca being ever so slightly better and generating outputs that are "typically shorter than ChatGPT."

## Leveling Out

All the same, Alpaca does, as the Stanford CRFM folks note, suffer from "several common deficiencies of language models, including hallucination, toxicity, and stereotypes," with [hallucination being of particular concern](<https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-hallucination>), especially when compared to OpenAI's text-davinci-003.

As multiple machine learning enthusiasts have noted, Alpaca's release date fell at the beginning of what [AI blogger Lior Sinclair noted](<https://twitter.com/AlphaSignalAI/status/1636412052951662593>) "might be the most eventful week AI has ever seen," with the Stanford model being followed first by [OpenAI releasing GPT-4](<https://futurism.com/openai-unveiled-ai-gpt-4>) followed by the drop of a new [version of the Midjourney image generator](<https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/03/ai-imager-midjourney-v5-stuns-with-photorealistic-images-and-5-fingered-hands/>) along with several other big news items.

While the big firms — and the up-and-coming ones like OpenAI — are making money moves, it's admittedly intriguing to see something cheap and easy like Alpaca crop up, albeit drawing on all the human brainpower at Stanford.

**More on AI:** *[Microsoft's Stunning Copilot AI Demo Could Change Office Work Forever](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-copilot-ai-office>)*

## Author
At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/noorfromfuturism.bsky.social>)