When conversing with a close friend, it flows as naturally as water. This is because we know each other well. It’s easy to bring up suitable conversation topics and understand what the other person wants within the context. For example, if the other person likes science fiction (SF) movies, the conversation won’t stop if you bring up a related topic. They can easily answer a request to recommend a good movie.
Unlike humans, generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT have to start over from the beginning when a conversation ends. It forgets who the user is and what they previously talked about. What if a generative AI chatbot could remember the user? What if it could provide answers that perfectly match the user’s preferences? There is a company trying to implement this. It’s OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.
ChatGPT, Gaining ‘Memory’
According to American IT media, The Verge, on February 14 (local time), OpenAI intends to give ChatGPT a memory. It’s not that ChatGPT remembers past events and user information like a real person. Users directly inject the information they want into ChatGPT, allowing them to receive customized services. The name of this feature is “Memory,” and it is planned to be tested soon with an unspecified small number of users.
There are two main ways for ChatGPT to remember user information. As mentioned earlier, the first is the method where the user injects specific information into ChatGPT. For example, the user can set it to remember exact details such as their name, age, favorite food and place, and what disease they have. The second method is for ChatGPT to learn related information little by little while interacting with the user.
OpenAI explained, “The user can control ChatGPT’s memory function,” and “They can instruct it to remember something or ask what it remembers.” They added, “They can also make it remember specific content or directly input detailed information,” and “The more the memory function is used, the better performance it will be.”
How will ChatGPT’s memory function be utilized?
If ChatGPT gains memory, it can provide a variety of customized answers.
Let’s assume the user told ChatGPT that they like horror movies. ChatGPT will consider the user’s preferences when asked to recommend a future film. Also, if they instructed ChatGPT to remember that my younger sibling likes puppies, ChatGPT will give answers reflecting the sibling’s preferences in related future questions.
One of the main features of ChatGPT is text summarization. If you tell ChatGPT in advance what format you prefer, it will provide a summary in that format from then on. If a teacher user has conveyed to ChatGPT the size of the class in charge of, how long the average class time is, etc., then when they request Please write a lesson plan, ChatGPT will utilize the information in its memory.
If you’re worried about personal information
It can be unsettling to provide ChatGPT with information related to yourself. In this case, you can turn off the memory function or delete the information you taught ChatGPT. The method is simple. 1) Access the settings menu in the lower left corner of the ChatGPT main screen. Then 2) go to Personal Settings, Memory menu in order. There are memory function disable toggle button and memory management options.
The information in the memory function does not disappear just by deleting the chat. You must go to the memory management menu and delete the data you entered directly. There is also a way to use temporary chat. Temporary chat is a function to chat with ChatGPT without utilizing the information injected into the memory function. The text left in the temporary chat is not recorded or used for training the ChatGPT model.
OpenAI explained that it is designed not to collect certain personal information. OpenAI said, “We are adjusting ChatGPT not to remember sensitive information such as health unless the user explicitly requests it.” This means that ChatGPT does not collect or remember information such as health status from the conversation unless the user directly injects information into the memory function.
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