I Found OpenAI’s $3B Loophole — Transcript

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1. 0:00This button gives you free AI from
2. 0:02OpenAI in any app, and it can literally
3. 0:04cost OpenAI billions of dollars per
4. 0:06year, which is exactly why I
5. 0:08open-sourced it so that by the end of
6. 0:10this video, you too will be able to
7. 0:11instantly get free OpenAI API, and not
8. 0:14only that, due to the way it works,
9. 0:15OpenAI can do nothing to stop me. Let me
10. 0:18explain. If you want to use OpenAI's AI
11. 0:20in any app, you need an API key with
12. 0:22every request costing [music] money. In
13. 0:24fact, OpenAI makes nearly $3 billion off
14. 0:27their API each year. But, there's an
15. 0:29obvious exception. You can use ChatGPT
16. 0:31and other products by OpenAI themselves
17. 0:33for free. And with a subscription, you
18. 0:35can use far more AI than you can with
19. 0:37the same cost in API. The reason, of
20. 0:39course, is that they lure you in and
21. 0:41trap you into using their product. But,
22. 0:42ironically, this pricing difference
23. 0:44between a ChatGPT account and API isn't
24. 0:46quite so open, especially given the fact
25. 0:49that it's the same [music] compute and
26. 0:50exact same cost for OpenAI to run a
27. 0:52model in their product or with an API
28. 0:54key. So, I always wondered, what [music]
29. 0:56if we could turn your ChatGPT account
30. 0:58into an API that you can use anywhere? A
31. 1:00single sign-in with ChatGPT button
32. 1:02[music] that would become OpenAI's
33. 1:04billion-dollar button that they
34. 1:05definitely don't want you to have. Now,
35. 1:07the obvious solution to achieve this is
36. 1:09to reverse engineer chat.openai.com,
37. 1:11where you can essentially access free AI
38. 1:13with your account. You would have to
39. 1:14figure out how they store your login
40. 1:15credentials and then intercept network
41. 1:17requests to see how those credentials
42. 1:18are used to authenticate the internal
43. 1:20ChatGPT endpoint that the website uses.
44. 1:22I would know this because over 3 years
45. 1:24ago, I had to reverse-engineer Google AI
46. 1:26SDK that used this path before Google
47. 1:28even had an API. But, from that, I
48. 1:30learned that not only are those [music]
49. 1:31credentials unstable, meaning that you
50. 1:33would have to constantly update them
51. 1:35manually, the internal ChatGPT endpoint
52. 1:37is also highly abstracted, meaning that
53. 1:39you can't do things like add custom
54. 1:41tools or get direct access to the
55. 1:42transcript. But, ChatGPT is just one of
56. 1:45OpenAI's products. Looking at the
57. 1:47selection of all the other products that
58. 1:48we can approach and try to
59. 1:49reverse-engineer to achieve our goal,
60. 1:51the choice becomes obvious: Codex CLI.
61. 1:54Like other products, it allows you to
62. 1:55log in with your ChatGPT account to use
63. 1:57AI. But, unlike other products, it's
64. 1:59open source, which means that not only
65. 2:01could we easily reverse engineer and
66. 2:03replicate their authentication pattern,
67. 2:05their API also has to be stable,
68. 2:07documented, and feature-rich because the
69. 2:09same maintain shipping product OpenAI is
70. 2:11constantly updating. Exactly the type of
71. 2:14API that we would want to reverse
72. 2:15engineer. But, the best part about this
73. 2:17is that OpenAI can't block access on
74. 2:19this Codex API without breaking Codex
75. 2:21itself, meaning that they can't stop you
76. 2:23on a technical level from using this
77. 2:25endpoint. And even on a practical level,
78. 2:28OpenAI has essentially said multiple
79. 2:29times that they are okay with using
80. 2:31alternate harnesses with a Codex
81. 2:33subscription. And this is simply a
82. 2:34generalization of that. So, we're good
83. 2:36to dig in. The way it works is simple.
84. 2:38Codex stores a special set of
85. 2:40OAuth-based credentials, which you use
86. 2:42to authenticate your requests to an
87. 2:44internal endpoint instead of an API key.
88. 2:46Since we can simply look at the code,
89. 2:47it's trivial to find the exact logic to
90. 2:49use those credentials to make requests.
91. 2:51We could then build a bridge from that
92. 2:52internal endpoint to a standard OpenAI
93. 2:55API interface. And while there were some
94. 2:57limitations with the Codex internal API,
95. 2:59we could hide many of these things
96. 3:01within our bridge. For example, Codex's
97. 3:03endpoint requires special headers and
98. 3:05identifiers. Our bridge can inject those
99. 3:07for you. Codex also only supports
100. 3:09streaming requests. So, our bridge can
101. 3:10stream under the hood and return a
102. 3:11non-streaming request if you need it.
103. 3:13But, of course, there were other
104. 3:14limitations that we simply couldn't work
105. 3:16around, such as the fact that even
106. 3:17though this works on a free plan, you
107. 3:19are still subject to rate limits, or the
108. 3:21fact that the models you have access to
109. 3:23also varies based on your plan.
110. 3:25Nonetheless, just like that, OpenAI
111. 3:27themselves had essentially just handed
112. 3:29us the ability to turn a ChatGPT account
113. 3:31into a free API key. And believe it or
114. 3:33not, you can literally try this out
115. 3:35right now by typing NPX OpenAI-OAuth
116. 3:38into your terminal. It'll take your free
117. 3:40or paid ChatGPT account, and using my
118. 3:42specially designed bridge, turn it into
119. 3:44a free OpenAI API. But, even with that,
120. 3:47we're only halfway done because so far,
121. 3:49we've only handled using credentials we
122. 3:51already have on the user's device. Where
123. 3:53it gets really interesting is getting
124. 3:55those credentials in the first place,
125. 3:57which can enable users beyond developers
126. 3:59with Code X CLI to replace their API
127. 4:01keys. But to understand why this is so
128. 4:03difficult and significant, we have to
129. 4:05start back at Code X CLI, reverse
130. 4:07engineering how users sign in. It's a
131. 4:10pretty standard OAuth flow. When a
132. 4:11client device begins sign in, it starts
133. 4:13listening at a special localhost port,
134. 4:151455. Then it sends you to OpenAI's
135. 4:17website, on which you can log in to your
136. 4:19account. Most importantly, when you're
137. 4:20done, sends those credentials back to
138. 4:22the localhost [music] 1455 port from the
139. 4:24beginning, so that the client device
140. 4:26that initialized the request can use
141. 4:27those credentials to make requests just
142. 4:29like we have done. Since we have Code
143. 4:30X's source, it's trivial to figure out
144. 4:32the special OAuth URL needed to
145. 4:34initialize the authentication and
146. 4:36replicate it locally on the user's
147. 4:37computer. We simply have to start a
148. 4:39service at 1455, and the rest is
149. 4:41straightforward. But now, let's take it
150. 4:42a step further. How can we make the sign
151. 4:45in flow work in even a browser, so that
152. 4:48any user, anywhere, can instantly log in
153. 4:50with their ChatGPT account to any
154. 4:52website? Something that would allow not
155. 4:54only developers, but users all around
156. 4:56the world to [music] ditch API keys
157. 4:58altogether. The issue though is that
158. 5:00OpenAI's OAuth flow only returns
159. 5:02credentials to localhost 1455, and a
160. 5:04normal browser tab can't read localhost,
161. 5:07much less open a service on a port to
162. 5:09read those credentials. So natural next
163. 5:10step is to have a server on the cloud,
164. 5:12which has access to its own localhost
165. 5:14and can handle the OAuth flow there. But
166. 5:16things quickly fall apart. First, the
167. 5:18server doesn't have your OpenAI account.
168. 5:20So you have to use OpenAI's device code
169. 5:22authentication, which allows you to
170. 5:24authenticate into a remote device using
171. 5:26a one-time code. But this also requires
172. 5:28you to turn on a setting in your ChatGPT
173. 5:30account, which is rather annoying and
174. 5:32feels like a loss of trust. And that
175. 5:33aside, if you just think about it, this
176. 5:35is essentially giving away your ChatGPT
177. 5:37account to some random third-party
178. 5:38server, which I personally would never
179. 5:41want to do. So, seems like we are at a
180. 5:43dead end. [music] An external server is
181. 5:44dangerous, and browser tabs can't
182. 5:46interact with localhost unless we accept
183. 5:48one trade-off. [music] Browser tabs
184. 5:50can't interact with localhost. But, what
185. 5:52about the browser itself? You see,
186. 5:54browser extensions, which can tap into
187. 5:56the capability of the browser itself,
188. 5:57can open and thus read existing
189. 6:00localhost websites. But, even an
190. 6:01extension can't create a service that
191. 6:03runs on a localhost 1455 to await
192. 6:06credentials. However, what if we don't
193. 6:08need to? You see, the purpose of that
194. 6:10server is to capture credentials from a
195. 6:11remote service locally. But, when OpenAI
196. 6:14makes the request to localhost, that
197. 6:16request itself already has the
198. 6:17authentication data that we need.
199. 6:19[music] So, all our extension has to do
200. 6:20is to intercept that request and
201. 6:22redirect the credentials back to the
202. 6:23website that is trying to sign in,
203. 6:25instead of ever having to deal with
204. 6:27localhost directly. And with a
205. 6:28completely open source and local browser
206. 6:31extension, we can do this directly
207. 6:32between your browser and OpenAI. No
208. 6:34credentials leave your system during the
209. 6:36sign-in flow, and no need to change any
210. 6:38ChatGPT settings. And to make it easy,
211. 6:40[music] the first time you use the
212. 6:41sign-in flow, it takes you directly to
213. 6:43the Chrome Web Store so that there is no
214. 6:45friction. Now, we can store these
215. 6:46credentials locally, encrypted in
216. 6:47browser storage at rest, only used to
217. 6:49make [music] API requests through the
218. 6:51same bridge that we talked about minutes
219. 6:52ago, completing the circuit. And just
220. 6:54like that, we've just managed to
221. 6:55authenticate an OpenAI account to make
222. 6:57requests as if it were an API key. This
223. 7:00is OpenAI's [music] billion-dollar
224. 7:02button, and I just made it open source.
225. 7:05Getting started is simple. With the set
226. 7:07of OpenAI OAuth libraries, you can set
227. 7:08up the sign-in button with just one
228. 7:10React component and connect it to any
229. 7:12OpenAI compatible SDK, like the Vercel
230. 7:15AI SDK. My vision is that frontier
231. 7:17intelligence is accessible to more
232. 7:19people, [music] and not just in apps
233. 7:20that the labs want you to use. With
234. 7:22sign-in with ChatGPT, that is easier
235. 7:25than ever. If you want to try it out, a
236. 7:26demo sign-in with ChatGPT is available
237. 7:28on Vercel at openai-oauth.vercel.app.
238. 7:31[music] And you can always get started
239. 7:32locally by just running MPX
240. 7:34openai-oauth.
241. 7:36Feel free to contribute or leave any
242. 7:37feedback or issues at
243. 7:38github.com/evanjodav/openai-oauth.
244. 7:42If you integrate OpenAI OAuth into any
245. 7:44apps, please share your creation on X
246. 7:46and tag me @EvanJoeDev. I'd be happy to
247. 7:48see what everyone is building. Usage of
248. 7:50OpenAI OAuth is still subject to
249. 7:52OpenAI's terms of use and other user
250. 7:53agreements. I'll see you guys next time.
251. 7:56Peace.