For all of these posts that says function calling is now available, I feel like it's actually more of an optimization than a new capability.
All of the leading edge models will output JSON in any format you ask for, such as {"fn_name": {"arg1":10}}. I think this is about making it more accurate and having a standard input/output format.
You have to specify the schema for that regardless.
Function calling has been available for text inputs for awhile, now it's also available for image inputs. OpenAI's function calling/structured data mode is much more strict and reliable at following the schema than just putting "return the output in JSON" in a system prompt.
Yes. But also note that the new function calling is actually “tool calling” where the model is also fine-tuned to expect and react to the output of the function (and there are various other nuances like being able to call multiple functions in parallel and matching up the outputs to function calls precisely).
When used in multi-turn “call/response” mode it actually does start to unlock some new capabilities.
All of the leading edge models will output JSON in any format you ask for, such as {"fn_name": {"arg1":10}}. I think this is about making it more accurate and having a standard input/output format.