Available Tools in SpiderAI

Overview

SpiderAI offers a suite of integrated tools that extend the capabilities of the chat interface. These tools support teaching, research, data analysis, creative work, and real-time information retrieval. Each tool can be enabled within a chat session to enhance the model’s functionality. This article provides an overview of each available tool and its primary use cases.

Details / Instructions

Instructional Mode

Instructional Mode reveals how the model is operating behind the scenes. It is especially useful for faculty, researchers, and students interested in AI transparency or debugging their workflows.

What it can do:

  • Display token probabilities and alternate generated tokens

  • Show web search queries used during a response

  • Display code executed by the Python tool

Use Cases:

  • Teaching AI literacy or demonstrating model behavior

  • Understanding why a model responded a certain way

  • Inspecting tool outputs for accuracy

Note: token probabilities are currently disabled due to performance issues with OpenAI’s API

 

Prompt Clarification

Prompt Clarification helps improve interactions by asking follow-up questions when a request is vague or incomplete.

What it can do:

  • Ask clarification questions before producing a full response

  • Guide users toward more effective prompt structure

Use Cases:

  • Learning how to write better prompts

  • Ensuring accuracy when tasks require detail

  • Avoiding misunderstandings in complex instructions

Examples:

  • “Summarize this article” → “Would you like a brief abstract or a detailed breakdown?”

  • “Visualize this data” → “Should this be a line chart, bar graph, or scatterplot?”

 

Web Search

Web Search allows SpiderAI to retrieve real-time information, making it ideal for research involving up-to-date sources.

What it can do:

  • Look up current events

  • Retrieve recent publications, statistics, and reports

  • Verify facts against live online data

Use Cases:

  • Academic or policy research

  • Collecting recent news on a topic

  • Fact-checking or data validation

 

Image Generation

SpiderAI can generate images for academic, instructional, or creative purposes.

Quality Levels:

  • Low: Fastest, basic quality

  • Medium: Balanced

  • High: Best quality but slowest (may time out on large requests)

Use Cases:

  • Creating lecture illustrations

  • Producing creative images for classroom or event materials

  • Generating concept art or storytelling visuals

 

File Search

File Search enables users to analyze uploaded files directly within a chat session.

What it can do:

  • Search and extract information from PDFs, Word documents, and text files

  • Answer questions grounded in specific documents

  • Compare information across multiple files

Use Cases:

  • Literature review or paper comparison

  • Syllabus analysis

  • Extracting themes or arguments from large documents

 

Python Tool

The Python tool allows execution of Python code for analysis, visualization, or data manipulation.

What it can do:

  • Perform data analysis and statistical operations

  • Generate charts and graphs

  • Process files (CSV, Excel, JSON, etc.)

  • Run modeling and compute outputs

Use Cases:

  • Lightweight data analytics

  • Research projects

  • Quick automation or prototyping

 

See Also

SpiderAI Full Documentation – [Insert link here]

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