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I really think this memory thing is overstated on Hacker News. This is not something that is hard to move at all. It's not a moat. I don't think most users even

I really think this memory thing is overstated on Hacker News. This is not something that is hard to move at all. It's not a moat. I don't think most users even know memory exist outside of a single conversation.

bsimpson 9mo ago
I dislike that it has a memory. It creeps me out when a past session poisons a current one.
- fluidcruft 9mo ago
  I agree. For me it's annoying because everything it generates is too tailored to the first stuff I started chatting with it about. I have multiple responsibilities and I haven't been able to get it to compartmentalize. When I'm wearing my "radiology research" support hat it assumes I'm also wearing my "MRI physics" hat and to weaves everything for MRI. It's really annoying.
  - 00deadbeef 9mo ago
    Use project-only memory https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10169521-projects-in-chatgpt#h_374a3efb05 https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10169521-projects-in-cha...
    - fluidcruft 9mo ago
      Thank you! I feel really dumb for not knowing about that!
- transcriptase 9mo ago
  Exactly. I went through a phase of playing around with ESP32s and now it tries to steer every prompt about anything technology or electronics related back to how it can be used in conjunction with a microcontroller, regardless of how little sense it makes.
- 00deadbeef 9mo ago
  You can turn it off
- bandrami 9mo ago
  Agree. Memory is absolutely a misfeature in almost every LLM use case
jorl17 9mo ago
Every single one of my non-techie friends who use ChatGPT rely heavily on memory. Whenever they try something different to it, they get very annoyed that it just doesn't "get them" or "know them". Perhaps it'll be easy to migrate memories indeed (I mean there are already plugins that sort of claim to do it, and it doesn't seem very hard), but it certainly is a very differentiating feature at the moment. I also use ChatGPT as my daily "chat LLM" because of memory, and, especially, because of the voice chat, which I still feel is miles better than any competition. People say Gemini voice chat is great, but I find it terrible. Maybe I'm on the wrong side of an A/B test.
- zephyrthenoble 9mo ago
  On the other side of the test, I don't know a non-tech person who uses ChatGPT at all.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 9mo ago
    Another data point: my generally tech savvy teenage daughter (17) says that her friends are only aware of AI having been available for last year (3 actually), and basically only use it via Snaphhat "My AI" (which is powered by OpenAI) as a homework helper. I get the impression that most non-techies have either never tried "AI", or regard it as Google (search) on steroids for answering questions. Maybe more related to his (sad but true) senility rather than lack of interest, but I was a bit shocked to see the physicist Roger Penrose interviewed recently by Curt Jaimungal, and when asked if he had tried LLMs/ChatGPT assumed the conversation was about the "stupid lady" (his words) ELIZA (fake chatbot from the 60's), evidentially never having even heard of LLMs!
  - babyoil 9mo ago
    My mom does. She's almost 60. She asks for recipes and facts, asks about random illnesses, asks it why she's feeling sad, asks it how to talk to her friend with terminal cancer. I didn't tell her to download the app, nor she is a tech-y person, she just did on her own.
- shaftway 9mo ago
ibuildbots 9mo ago
It doesn't even change the responses a lot. I used ChatGPT for a year for a lot of personal stuff, and tried a new account with basic prompts and it was pretty much the same. Lots of glazing.

bsimpson 9mo ago

I dislike that it has a memory. It creeps me out when a past session poisons a current one.

fluidcruft 9mo ago
I agree. For me it's annoying because everything it generates is too tailored to the first stuff I started chatting with it about. I have multiple responsibilities and I haven't been able to get it to compartmentalize. When I'm wearing my "radiology research" support hat it assumes I'm also wearing my "MRI physics" hat and to weaves everything for MRI. It's really annoying.
- 00deadbeef 9mo ago
  Use project-only memory https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10169521-projects-in-chatgpt#h_374a3efb05 https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10169521-projects-in-cha...
  - fluidcruft 9mo ago
    Thank you! I feel really dumb for not knowing about that!
transcriptase 9mo ago
Exactly. I went through a phase of playing around with ESP32s and now it tries to steer every prompt about anything technology or electronics related back to how it can be used in conjunction with a microcontroller, regardless of how little sense it makes.
00deadbeef 9mo ago
You can turn it off
bandrami 9mo ago
Agree. Memory is absolutely a misfeature in almost every LLM use case

jorl17 9mo ago

Every single one of my non-techie friends who use ChatGPT rely heavily on memory. Whenever they try something different to it, they get very annoyed that it just doesn't "get them" or "know them". Perhaps it'll be easy to migrate memories indeed (I mean there are already plugins that sort of claim to do it, and it doesn't seem very hard), but it certainly is a very differentiating feature at the moment. I also use ChatGPT as my daily "chat LLM" because of memory, and, especially, because of the voice chat, which I still feel is miles better than any competition. People say Gemini voice chat is great, but I find it terrible. Maybe I'm on the wrong side of an A/B test.

zephyrthenoble 9mo ago
On the other side of the test, I don't know a non-tech person who uses ChatGPT at all.
- HarHarVeryFunny 9mo ago
  Another data point: my generally tech savvy teenage daughter (17) says that her friends are only aware of AI having been available for last year (3 actually), and basically only use it via Snaphhat "My AI" (which is powered by OpenAI) as a homework helper. I get the impression that most non-techies have either never tried "AI", or regard it as Google (search) on steroids for answering questions. Maybe more related to his (sad but true) senility rather than lack of interest, but I was a bit shocked to see the physicist Roger Penrose interviewed recently by Curt Jaimungal, and when asked if he had tried LLMs/ChatGPT assumed the conversation was about the "stupid lady" (his words) ELIZA (fake chatbot from the 60's), evidentially never having even heard of LLMs!
- babyoil 9mo ago
  My mom does. She's almost 60. She asks for recipes and facts, asks about random illnesses, asks it why she's feeling sad, asks it how to talk to her friend with terminal cancer. I didn't tell her to download the app, nor she is a tech-y person, she just did on her own.
shaftway 9mo ago

ibuildbots 9mo ago

It doesn't even change the responses a lot. I used ChatGPT for a year for a lot of personal stuff, and tried a new account with basic prompts and it was pretty much the same. Lots of glazing.