Interactive AI based K.I.T.T. with Voicebox

Attribution and Acknowledgment: many thanks to DevMiser for his awesome DaVinci project! He laid the foundation for this K.I.T.T project and made it possible in the first place!

This interactive AI based K.I.T.T is a python program that utilizes Picovoice Porcupine (and PyAudio) to detect a wake word; Picovoice Cobra voice activity detection to determine when the user begins and finishes speaking their query; Picovoice Leopard to convert the spoken query to text; OpenAI ChatGPT as the artificial intelligence that responds to the query; Amazon Polly text to speech to convert the response into a natural-sounding human voice; and PyAudio to play the audio. At the same time the voice output is displayed on the voicebox VU meter. The voicebox is attached to the Pi 4 via I2C bus.

Parts required:

• Raspberry Pi 4 – This needs to be a Raspberry Pi 4, so that you can run the 64-bit operating system. Earlier versions of Raspberry Pis are likely to throw memory errors while running this program. Raspberry Pi’s newest OS (Bookworm) released on December 5, 2023, does not work well with this installation. For best results, use a Raspberry Pi 4 (not a Raspberry Pi 5) and use the legacy 64-bit OS. The 2 GB RAM model is sufficient: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4292
• microSD card, minimum 16GB seems to be a good choice: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2693
• Power Supply – 5V power supply. I recommend the official Raspberry Pi power supply: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4298
• USB Microphone – for talking to K.I.T.T. Any USB mic should work, and this inexpensive one is sufficient: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3367
• USB speaker – for K.I.T.T. to talk back to you. I used this one: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3369
• my voicebox PCB. I may have some unpoplutaed boards left... contact me
• some nice housing, to be designed...

Creating required API keys

Create an OpenAI Account and create a secret key

• Create an account on https://openai.com
• Sign in and click on your personal icon in the upper right-corner and then click on "View API keys". Click on "Create new secret key" and copy the key for later use.

I think you need to make sure to have a positive credit balance in your account. I do not remember if you get a free amount to start with when opening an account.

Create Picovoice Account and create access key

• Create a free account on https://picovoice.ai
• Sign in and copy your AccessKey for later use

Create AWS IAM account and obtain AWS access key and secret access key

This is the trickiest step...

• Create a free AWS account on https://aws.amazon.com/free/
• Go to the IAM dashboard under https://console.aws.amazon.com/iamv2
• Select "User groups" from the menu on the left side, then click "Create group" in the upper right corner.
• As group name enter "Polly".
• Under "Attach permission policies - Optional" search for "Polly" and select "AmazonPollyFullAccess".
• Then select "Users" from the menu on the left side and click "Add users" in the upper right corner.
• Type "Polly_User" and click next.
• Under Permission options select "Add user to group" and check the box next to "Polly" under "User groups". Click next.
• Click "Create User" and then "View User".
• In the tab "Security credentials" click "Create access key". Select "Command Line Interface (CLI), tick the box at the bottom and click "Create access key".
• On the next page copy both "Access key" and "Secret access key" for later use.

Install required software on Raspberry Pi

Edit the bashrc file with sudo nano ~/.bashrc
At the bottom add:

# sets a location where the Raspberry Pi OS and Python can look for
# executable/configuration files
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Press Ctrl + x and answer with y
sudo reboot to reboot your Raspberry Pi
When back up enter the following commands, one by one. Answer with y when asked:
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
pip3 install --upgrade pip
sudo apt-get install portaudio19-dev
pip3 install pyaudio
pip3 install pvrecorder
pip3 install pvporcupine
pip3 install pvcobra
pip3 install pvleopard
pip3 install --upgrade openai
pip3 install boto3
pip3 install awscli
pip3 install sounddevice
pip3 install pydub
sudo reboot
The Raspberry Pi reboots again. When back up enter: aws configure
Enter the keys when asked, for the region name enter the closest to you from this list: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html#regional-endpoints
Default output format can be left emtpy.

When completed enter sudo raspi-config and navigate to 3 Interface Options -> Ì4 I2C and select Yes. Hit enter and leave raspi-config.
sudo reboot
Your Raspberry Pi reboots again.

Install the K.I.T.T. program

Enter git clone https://github.com/RetoHB/K.I.T.T..git (make sure to type the double point before git)
Enter the directory which has been created by typing cd K.I.T.T.
Modify the keys.py file with sudo nano keys.py
Between the quotations marks enter your personal openai and picovoice keys created earlier. Save and close by hitting Ctrl + x and y

Run the K.I.T.T. program

From within the K.I.T.T. directory type python kitt.pyto start the program
Say hey kitt to make K.I.T.T. listen to your query. Ask him whatever you want.
After 15 seconds of silence K.I.T.T. will go to sleep. You can wake him up by saying hey kitt again.

To exit K.I.T.T. hit Ctrl + c

Run the K.I.T.T. program automatically when the Pi starts

For an autostart to be achieved, two steps are required:

• set the main user to logon automatically when the Pi starts. For this do sudo raspi-config navigate to 1 System Options - S5 - Boot / Auto Login -> B2 - Console Autologin. Hit Enter and Esc to leave.
• start the kitt python program whenever a user logs in. Edit sudo nano ~/.bashrc and at the very bottom of the file add the line (cd /home/kitt/K.I.T.T.; python kitt.py &). Adjust the path to match your installation.