ChatGPT Will Now Remember — And Forget — Things You Tell It To

OpenAI says it may keep a copy of Temporary Chat conversations for up to 30 days for "safety reasons," however.

Now, one imagines that ChatGPT could, over time, accumulate a lot of sensitive personal details in its memory, especially considering that the memory feature is switched on by default.

The memory feature for both ChatGPT and GPTs can be disabled at any time from the ChatGPT settings menu, and when it's turned off, ChatGPT and GPTs won't create or use memories. From this same menu, you can view and delete specific memories or clear all memories.

OpenAI's rolling out a new Temporary Chat feature in ChatGPT, initially limited to a small subset of free and subscription users. With Temporary Chat, you can have a dialogue with a blank slate of sorts; ChatGPT won't be aware of previous conversations or access memories but will follow custom instructions if they're enabled.

Note that deleting a chat from chat history won't erase ChatGPT's or a GPT's memories — you have to delete the memory itself.