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ChatGPT logo: Users come into focus
Photo: DADO RUVIC / REUTERS
In the future, the chatbot ChatGPT will be able to remember information about its users in order to be able to individualize its answers for them. The software can, for example, remember that you have a daughter who likes jellyfish, explains the developer company OpenAI. If you later ask ChatGPT to design a birthday card for your child, it might show a jellyfish in a party hat.
The function will initially be tested in a small group. It is explosive because there have been repeated fears that applications with artificial intelligence could investigate and even discriminate against users. Many companies had banned or restricted the use of such services to prevent company secrets from leaking out.
Forget at the push of a button
When introducing the new function, OpenAI is proceeding with particular caution. This means you can explicitly ask the AI to remember or forget certain things. There should also be an option to ask what things ChatGPT has remembered.
At the same time, the software itself can try to pick out knowledge about them from conversations with its users. “ChatGPT’s memory gets better the more you use it,” emphasizes OpenAI. This is intended to make the chatbot more useful in everyday use.
However, profile creation should only take place with the knowledge and consent of the users. ChatGPT does not save sensitive information, for example related to health, automatically, but only upon explicit request.
There will still be temporary chats for conversations without personalization. The information from this will not be used for further training of the software. The memory function can also be switched off completely.
OpenAI also sees benefits when used in companies. This allows the software to remember which format you prefer to receive summaries of video conferences in. Or she could adapt to the style in which formulation aids should be written.
tmk/dpa