You’ll soon be able to tell ChatGPT to forget things – or to remember specific things in future conversations.
Today, as part of testing, OpenAI began rolling out the fresh “memory” controls to a tiny portion of ChatGPT’s free and paid users, with a wider rollout coming in the unspecified future. The controls allow you to explicitly tell ChatGPT to remember something, see what it remembers, or disable memory altogether.
OpenAI explains wa blog post: :
“ChatGPT can now transfer what it learns between chats, so it can provide more relevant answers… When you talk to ChatGPT, you can ask it to remember something specific or let it gather details on its own. ChatGPT memory will get better the more you employ it, and over time you will start to see improvements.
It’s not challenging to imagine scenarios where in-memory ChatGPT could come in handy.
If, say, you want ChatGPT to remind you that you live in the suburbs and therefore prefer driving to public transportation, you can simply tell it that fact (e.g., “Remember that I live in the suburbs and mostly drive”). Or if you want parenting tips to apply to younger children because you have a preschooler, you can specify that (e.g., “Remember I have a preschooler”).
OpenAI lists several ways memory can be useful in a business context as well, such as remembering tone, voice and formatting preferences for blog posts, and programming languages and frameworks.
GPT – custom chatbots powered by OpenAI models, available in the GPT store – have their own memories. For example, Books GPT can automatically remember which books you’ve already read and what genres you like best. But these memories are never shared with ChatGPT – and vice versa.
The memory feature for both ChatGPT and GPT can be disabled at any time in the ChatGPT settings menu, and when disabled, ChatGPT and GPT will not create or employ memory. From the same menu you can view and delete specific memories or delete all memories.
Please note that deleting a chat from your chat history will not remove the ChatGPT or GPT storage – you will need to delete the storage itself.
Now, you can imagine that ChatGPT could accumulate a lot of sensitive personal information in its memory over time, especially considering that the storage feature is enabled by default. OpenAI acknowledges this possibility and also says it can employ memory to improve its models, except for ChatGPT business customers and users who opt out.
However, OpenAI also says it is taking steps to move ChatGPT away from “proactively” remembering sensitive information such as health details unless the user specifically requests it.
“ChatGPT memories evolve with your interactions and are not tied to specific conversations,” writes OpenAI. “[And] memories, such as chats, from GPT are not shared with GPT creators.”
To provide greater privacy protection, OpenAI is introducing a fresh fleeting chat feature in ChatGPT, initially confined to a tiny group of free and subscription users. With temp chat, you can essentially dialogue with a blank slate; ChatGPT will not be aware of previous conversations or access memories, but will follow custom instructions if they are enabled.
OpenAI, however, says it may retain a copy of fleeting chat conversations for up to 30 days “for security reasons.”