Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Claude Memory

anthropic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 326 posts

Re: Claude Memory

#281

Post by lsaferite »

baq wrote: post #249
awesome_dude wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, the AI does exactly what I intend for it to do. Almost, as I said earler, like the AI has processed my request, realised that I am referring to the context of the earlier discussions, and moved on to the next prompt exactly how I have expected it to Given the two very VERY dumb responses, and multiple people down voting, I am reminded how thankful I am that AI is around now, because it understood what yo…

I think you completely misunderstood me, actually. I explicitly say if it works, great, no sarcasm. LLMs are finicky beasts. Just keep in mind they don’t really forget anything, if you tell it to forget, the things you told it before are still taken into the matrix multiplication mincers and influence outputs just the same. Any forgetting is pretend in that your ‘please forget’ is mixed in after. But back to schedule…

It's beyond possible that the LLM Chat Agent has tools to self manage context. I've written tools that let an agent compress chunks of context, search those chunks, and uncompress them at will. It'd be trivial to add a tool that allowed the agent to ignore that tool call and anything before it.

Re: Claude Memory

#282

Post by lsaferite »

awesome_dude wrote: post #274
dns_snek wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am reminded how thankful I am that AI is around now, because it understood what you clearly don't. We understand what you're saying just fine but what you're saying is simply wrong as a matter of technical fact. All of that context still exists and still degrades the output even if the model has fooled you into thinking that it doesn't. Therefore recommending it as an alternative to actually clearing the context…

What I'm saying is.. I tell the AI to "forget everything" and it understands what I mean... and you're arguing that it cannot do... what you INCORRECTLY think is being said I get that you're not very intelligent, but do you have to show it repeatedly?

You should probably stop resorting to personal attacks as it's against hn rules.

Re: Claude Memory

#283

Post by mmcconnell1618 »

Nition wrote: post #100
cainxinth wrote: post #23

I don't use any of these type of LLM tools which basically amount to just a prompt you leave in place. They make it harder to refine my prompts and keep track of what is causing what in the outputs. I write very precise prompts every time. Also, I try not work out a problem over the course of several prompts back and forth. The first response is always the best and I try to one shot it every time. If I don't get what…

> The first response is always the best and I try to one shot it every time. If I don't get what I want, I adjust the prompt and try again. I've really noticed this too and ended up taking your same strategy, especially with programming questions. For example if I ask for some code and the LLM initially makes an incorrect assumption, I notice the result tends to be better if I go back and provide that info in my init…

When you get the answer you want, follow up with "How could I have asked my question in a way to get to this answer faster?" and the LLM will provide some guidance on how to improve your question prompt. Over time, you'll get better at asking questions and getting answers in fewer shots.

Re: Claude Memory

#284

Post by mmcconnell1618 »

connorshinn wrote: post #208
cruffle_duffle wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. ChatGPT put all kinds of nonsense into its memory. “Cruffle is trying to make bath bombs with baking soda and citric acid” or “Cruffle is deciding between a red colored bedsheet or a green colored bedsheet”. Like great both of those are “time bound” and have no relevance after I made the bath bomb or picked a white bedsheet… All these LLM manufacturers lack ways to edit these memories either. It’s…

In fairness, you can always ask Claude Code to write it's plan to an MD file, make edits to it, and then ask it to execute the updated plan you created. I suppose it's an extra step or two vs directly editing from the the terminal, but I prefer it overall. It's nice to have something to reference while the plan is being implemented

I do the same. It lets you see exactly what the LLM is using for context and you can easily correct manually. Similar to the spec-driven-development in Kiro where you define the plan first, then move to creating code to meet the plan.

Re: Claude Memory

#285

Post by sheepscreek »

brulard wrote: post #177
brookst wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty deep in this stuff and I find memory super useful. For instance, I can ask "what windshield wipers should I buy" and Claude (and ChatGPT and others) will remember where I live, what winter's like, the make, model, and year of my car, and give me a part number. Sure, there's more control in re-typing those details every single time. But there is also value in not having to.

I would say these are two distinct use cases - one is the assistant that remembers my preferences. The other use case is the clean intelligent blackbox that knows nothing about previous sessions and I can manage the context in fine detail. Both are useful, but for very different problems.

Good point. I almost wish for an anonymous mode with chat history.

Re: Claude Memory

#286

Post by love2read »

sheepscreek wrote: post #285
brulard wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say these are two distinct use cases - one is the assistant that remembers my preferences. The other use case is the clean intelligent blackbox that knows nothing about previous sessions and I can manage the context in fine detail. Both are useful, but for very different problems.

Good point. I almost wish for an anonymous mode with chat history.

Would that just be the ability to chat without making new memories while using existing memories?

Re: Claude Memory

#287

Post by baq »

awesome_dude wrote: post #277
baq wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you completely misunderstood me, actually. I explicitly say if it works, great, no sarcasm. LLMs are finicky beasts. Just keep in mind they don’t really forget anything, if you tell it to forget, the things you told it before are still taken into the matrix multiplication mincers and influence outputs just the same. Any forgetting is pretend in that your ‘please forget’ is mixed in after. But back to schedule…

No. I think that you are misunderstanding EVERYTHING Answer this: 1. Why would I care what the other interpretation of the wording I GAVE is? 2. What would that interpretation matter when the LLM/AI took my exact meaning and behaved correctly? Finally - you think you "know how it works"???? Because you tried to correct me with an incorrect interpretation? F0ff

Well ask it to tell you what it forgot. Over and out.

Re: Claude Memory

#288

Post by mac-attack »

Zarathruster wrote: post #240
cruffle_duffle wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. ChatGPT put all kinds of nonsense into its memory. “Cruffle is trying to make bath bombs with baking soda and citric acid” or “Cruffle is deciding between a red colored bedsheet or a green colored bedsheet”. Like great both of those are “time bound” and have no relevance after I made the bath bomb or picked a white bedsheet… All these LLM manufacturers lack ways to edit these memories either. It’s…

From the linked post: > If you use projects, Claude creates a separate memory for each project. This ensures that your product launch planning stays separate from client work, and confidential discussions remain separate from general operations. If for some reason you want Claude's help making bath bombs, you can make a separate project in which memory is containerized. Alternatively, the bath bomb and bedsheet quest…

Appreciate the nuanced response

Re: Claude Memory

#289

Post by logicallee »

awesome_dude wrote: post #279
logicallee wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it can't really "forget everything so far" just because you ask it to. everything so far would still be part of the context. you need a new chat with memory turned off if you want a fresh context.

[flagged]

okay, thanks for sharing that it worked for you, which is interesting and surprising. I would expect it not to work.

Re: Claude Memory

#290

Post by dns_snek »

awesome_dude wrote: post #274
dns_snek wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am reminded how thankful I am that AI is around now, because it understood what you clearly don't. We understand what you're saying just fine but what you're saying is simply wrong as a matter of technical fact. All of that context still exists and still degrades the output even if the model has fooled you into thinking that it doesn't. Therefore recommending it as an alternative to actually clearing the context…

What I'm saying is.. I tell the AI to "forget everything" and it understands what I mean... and you're arguing that it cannot do... what you INCORRECTLY think is being said I get that you're not very intelligent, but do you have to show it repeatedly?

Again, we understand your argument and I don't doubt that the model "understands" your request and agrees to do it (insofar that LLMs are able to "understand" anything).

But just because the model is agreeing to "forget everything" doesn't mean that it's actually clearing its own context, and because it's not actually clearing its own context it means that all the output quality problems associated with an overfilled context continue to apply, even if the model is convincingly pretending to have forgotten everything. Therefore your original interjection of "instead of clearing the context you can just ask it to forget" was mistaken and misleading.

These conversations would be way easier if you didn't go around labeling everyone an idiot, believing that we're all incapable of understanding your rather trivial point while ignoring everything we say. In an alternative universe this could've been:

> You can ask it to forget.

> Models don't work like that.

> Oh, I didn't know that, thanks!

Post reply on HN