In response to concerns about declining performance, OpenAI‘s ChatGPT now includes’memory’ for tailored conversations.
ChatGPT New Updates
OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research lab, has added the ability to set custom prompts across all chats to its popular app, ChatGPT.
According to OpenAI, this new feature gives the AI system a semblance of memory, allowing it to recall some context in its interactions with users.
The update, dubbed “custom instructions,” allows users to customize how ChatGPT responds in a conversation. This feature will initially be available in beta for Plus plan users, with a wider rollout planned in the coming weeks.
The initiative was inspired by user feedback indicating dissatisfaction with having to start each conversation from scratch.
After engaging with users from all over the world, OpenAI is now focusing on steerability in tailoring their models to meet the diverse contexts and needs of individuals.
This new feature ensures that users’ preferences or needs are taken into account in every conversation, eliminating the need for repeated instructions.
- The Advantages of Custom Instructions
For example, a data scientist working on a complex machine learning project can instruct ChatGPT to remember that they are working with a specific dataset and need help cleaning the data and predicting the results.
An author using ChatGPT to generate plot ideas for their novel can now specify that they are writing a science fiction novel set in a post-apocalyptic world, as well as details about the characters and plotline.
The model will remember these details and tailor all subsequent suggestions to this genre and setting. Furthermore, a crypto trader may wish to discuss the most recent price trends in Bitcoin.
They can instruct the AI to remember their Bitcoin interest, and any future market analysis generated by ChatGPT will center on Bitcoin, eliminating the need to specify their interest each time.
- Instructions for Using the Plugin
Despite being in beta, there are already indications that the custom instructions feature can improve plugin usage by providing contextual information that can be applied across multiple plugins. However, OpenAI warns that ChatGPT may not always correctly interpret these instructions at this time.
Adding custom plugin instructions would allow those interested in analyzing data, such as charts and price movements, to have plugins fetch data without having to explicitly ask for it in each prompt.
Privacy concerns have also been addressed. OpenAI has taken steps to ensure that instructions from users that violate its Usage Policies are not saved.
Popular methods to ‘jailbreak’ ChatGPT and disable security features are most likely part of the strategy’s intended focus. In addition, personal identifiers found in custom instructions have been removed to improve model performance.
While the addition of basic’memory’ functionality is a significant step forward, the true potential of this feature will be revealed as users explore and interact with this newly enhanced tool.
- Performance Decline
Despite OpenAI’s positive progress, questions have been raised about ChatGPT’s capabilities. According to a recent UC Berkeley and Stanford University research paper, some users have reported a noticeable decrease in the performance of GPT-4, the underlying technology of ChatGPT Plus.
The researchers compared GPT-4 to its predecessor, GPT-3.5, and discovered a decline in performance over time—for example, when asked whether 17077 is a prime number, ChatGPT’s accuracy dropped by 95.2%.
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