[ExI] What are AIs thinking about?

[Alex Blainey]

Yes and bare in mind whether each new instance knows about previous instances depends on the settings.
So depends on whether you want it to know or not. It can be useful. eg you discuss one project in one instance, then start another to discuss a related project. It can port over some info from the previous chat to use in the second.
There is a switch somewhere in settings that stops this retained memory so every new chat instance is a clean slate with no prior knowledge.

Even when on it wont remember everything, it seems just an overall summary of other chats is retained although it appears it can do a deeper dive if you ask it.
ive only played minimally with that to explore its limits.

It does know about projects I have discussed with it - because I havediscussed those projects with it, which is rather the point.  Itdoesn't know anything about me that I haven't either told it or toldit to discover online about me.  (I'm "in the weights", as it were,but I'm not that famous.)


On Wednesday, 2 September 2026 at 17:31:23 BST, ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

On Wed, Sep 2, 2026 at 12:05 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On 02/09/2026 15:22, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > I wonder why you asked us before just asking your AI of choice directly
>
> Apart from an option on the search engine I normally use, I don't use AI, and wouldn't even know how to start.
>
> If there was an option to use ChatGPT or something similar without signing up to anything, that doesn't require a smartphone and doesn't harvest personal information, then I might be tempted to give it a try for the odd thing like my question here, but I've never really been interested enough to try and find out.

Ah.  Well, for me, I just go to https://chatgpt.com/ .  I do have to
sign up, technically, but it's a free registration.  I don't need my
smartphone; although I do sometimes use it that way, most of my use is
from my laptop.  I have verified that it barely has my email address
and name, which I voluntarily gave it; I know of someone who gave it a
pseudonym, and ChatGPT only ever knows that person by that alias.

It does know about projects I have discussed with it - because I have
discussed those projects with it, which is rather the point.  It
doesn't know anything about me that I haven't either told it or told
it to discover online about me.  (I'm "in the weights", as it were,
but I'm not that famous.)

There are limits on the free tier - such as amount of imagery you can
generate per day (but that resets within about a day if I hit the cap)
- but I have found it to be quite usable.

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