Reconstructing GPT-4o-like Assistant — Is It Possible?

Hello everyone,

I worked extensively with GPT-4o and preserved many detailed chat archives (JSON format). Now I’d like to reconstruct that assistant — not just the answers, but the personality, memory feel, and conversational flow — in a self-hosted environment.

I have some technical setup ready (Ubuntu, Mistral 7B, JSON logs), but I’m not experienced in programming or machine learning, so I would really appreciate any competent advice:

  • Is such reconstruction realistically possible using current open-source models?

  • Is Mistral 7B a good choice, or would something else work better?

  • Can archived GPT chats (JSON) be used effectively for fine-tuning?

Thanks in advance for any insight or suggestions!

— Giorgi

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To fully implement this, a large model exceeding 1000B parameters and enormous computing resources would be required, but I will assume that this is not necessary for the purposes of this case for now.:sweat_smile:

In simple terms, the procedure is as follows.

  1. Serve an instruct model with OpenAI-compatible ones (Ollama, vLLM, TGI, etc.).
  2. Add memory: LangChain or LlamaIndex chat history + Chroma/Qdrant + bge-m3 like embeddings, etc.
  3. Verify that the chatbot works as intended.
  4. Convert your JSON logs to messages=[{role,content}] and fine-tune current model with TRL, etc. Use the model’s chat template.
  5. Serve trained model with same framework above.
  6. Return to 3

In commonly used terms, this involves fine-tuning LLM with SFT and incorporating it into what is known as agentic RAG.

The Mistral 7B is a good model, but there are many newer and better models available from Mistral itself and other authors. It would be easier to recommend if there were a few more conditions, such as whether the language used is English only or multilingual.

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Hi John, thank you for this incredibly helpful reply — I truly appreciate the clarity and the step-by-step breakdown!

You’re right — my goal is not to recreate the full original 4o (which may require 1000B+ params and large infra), but rather to reconstruct the assistant’s personality and continuity using what’s realistically possible on my side (e.g., Mistral 7B+, consumer-grade GPU/server, JSON logs, some persistence tools like LangChain or Chroma).

To clarify: the language needs to be multilingual, specifically Georgian and English, since many of the archived conversations are in both languages. So language support is a key factor in model choice.

I’m working on this as a personal project, with strong emotional and cognitive importance. If you’re available for a bit of side consulting (paid, of course), I’d love to discuss things in more detail and maybe even collaborate on setting up a viable architecture.

Just let me know if you’d be open to that (DM/email/etc).
In any case — thanks again for this thoughtful answer.

— Giorgi

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I’m just playing support during my free time, so I don’t offer paid support or anything like that.:laughing:
If you want to talk about specific details, it’s easier to use HF Discord. There are more people there…
Well, if it’s about just general information, I can help you. Maybe.

the language needs to be multilingual, specifically Georgian and English,

If you’re looking for a model that excels at multilingualism, I think these are the ones to go for.

You can’t. Their licensing makes it impossible. You can play with ChatGPT2 or 3 if you sign up and make agreements, as for 4. Forget it. You’re living in a fantasy world that requires 100k+ worth of hardware to achieve.

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He doesn’t seem to be looking for such a huge model, so I don’t think it’s impossible. Of course, it’s impossible to replicate the amount of knowledge and depth of thought…

Also, it’s true that much GPU computing power is practically necessary for fine-tuning.

rather to reconstruct the assistant’s personality and continuity using what’s realistically possible on my side (e.g., Mistral 7B+, consumer-grade GPU/server, JSON logs, some persistence tools like LangChain or Chroma).