The New Moat: Memory • Hacker News Board

Re: The New Moat: Memory

#21

Post by bentt » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 4:48 PM UTC

kadushka wrote: post #16

bentt wrote: post #14

This is a great reason to learn from our mistakes of the 2010s and not give ourselves away to OpenAI and other cloud AI providers. I would like to see a memory provider/system that allows us to own this data and put OpenAI et al on the customer end. They should be paying US for that.

But I want their models to know as much as possible about me - it should improve my experience using them.

While I agree the experience of using the model will be improved with that knowledge, the memory you build should belong to YOU and not them. In fact, they shouldn't even be able to look at it for any other purpose than to serve you. It needs to be encrypted and secure and private. They will do anything they can to prevent this because there is immense value in owning someone's memory/identity.

Re: The New Moat: Memory

#22

Post by sdsd » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

bentt wrote: post #14

This is a great reason to learn from our mistakes of the 2010s and not give ourselves away to OpenAI and other cloud AI providers. I would like to see a memory provider/system that allows us to own this data and put OpenAI et al on the customer end. They should be paying US for that.

>learn from our mistakes

Oof, I wish I had the optimism to even consider this a realistic option. If we thought social media power was a threat to democracy, wait til we see what AI companies do.

Re: The New Moat: Memory

#23

Post by natrius » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 5:57 PM UTC

rco8786 wrote: post #18

natrius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I want to try a new AI, it can offer to import my data by using my computer and reading the screen.

> import my data by using my computer You're under the mistaken impression that you will own this data. What you are describing is akin to saying you will just export your friends list, posts, messages, pictures, etc from facebook to some other social network. Maybe you are technically able to run your own AIs (and I guess they would somehow be supported by these other platforms?). But most people are not.

It's hard to export my friends list because there's no API for automated tools to use. AI can export your friends list today because it can see your friends list in the browser. I think the same thing will happen for chatbot memory. I don't need to run my own AI to do this. Every AI company will build their own importer.

Re: The New Moat: Memory

#24

Post by bentt » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:06 PM UTC

sdsd wrote: post #22

bentt wrote: post #14

This is a great reason to learn from our mistakes of the 2010s and not give ourselves away to OpenAI and other cloud AI providers. I would like to see a memory provider/system that allows us to own this data and put OpenAI et al on the customer end. They should be paying US for that.

>learn from our mistakes Oof, I wish I had the optimism to even consider this a realistic option. If we thought social media power was a threat to democracy, wait til we see what AI companies do.

You only have control over yourself.

Re: The New Moat: Memory

#25

Post by cadamsdotcom » Fri, Apr 18, 2025, 8:48 AM UTC

Solid prediction.

You can see this in the reddit memes that say things like “open chatgpt and ask it for your 5 biggest blind spots right now. Mind. Blown.”

Those who know it’s a tool call - plus some clever algorithms governing what the tool returns - could not be rolling their eyes harder. People who know what’s up will keep pasting things into new chats, and keep using delete and “forget memories” buttons. Maybe even multiple accounts.

But increasingly that’ll be “the old slow way”. You can see it in the comments here - people are grateful not to have to explain the stack again. They don’t want a blank unprimed conversation - and rather than copy-pasting a priming prompt (or having the model write a Cursor rule) they’d rather abdicate control over the AI’s behavior to an opaque priming process and a tool with unknown recall.

But everyone else is doing it, so a great many eye-rollers will give up and be swept up too.

AI memory has already captured the type of person who obeys instructions in reddit memes. Next is normies (your parents) who will find it pleasant the AI seems to know them well. They won’t understand how creepy it is, nor how much power is in the hands of someone who can train an AI on their chats. And experts will do their best to make the AI forget with delete buttons and the like; but even they will need to let the tools remember their patterns just to keep up with society.

Ergo, lock-in & network effects.

So yes, it’s a pretty reasonable prediction.