[awesome_dude]

If I find that previous prompts are polluting the responses I tell Claude to "Forget everything so far"

BUT I do like that Claude builds on previous discussions, more than once the built up context has allowed Claude to improve its responses (eg. [Actual response] "Because you have previously expressed a preference for SOLID and Hexagonal programming I would suggest that you do X" which was exactly what I wanted)

[logicallee]

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.

[famouswaffles]

It can't forget everything, but it can and probably does have an effect on how much attention it gives to those particular tokens.

[awesome_dude]

I mean I am telling you what has actually worked for me so far - and being a NLP the system (should) understand what that means... as should you...

[baq]

LLMs literally can’t forget. If it’s in the context window, it is known regardless of what you put in the context next.

That said, if the ‘pretend forget’ you’re getting works for you, great. Just remember it’s fake.

[stefs]

it may be possible to add - or rather, that they've already added - an mcp function that clears the context?

[awesome_dude]

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 you clearly don't.

I didn't expect it to delete the internet, the world, the universe, or anything, it didn't read my request as an instruction to do so... yet you and that other imbecile seem to think that that's what was meant... even after me saying it was doing as I wanted.

/me shrugs - now fight me how your interpretation is the only right one... go on... (like you and that other person already are)

One thing I am not going to miss is the toxic "We know better" responses from JUNIORS

[baq]

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 scheduled programming: if it works, great. This is prompt engineering, not magic, not humans, just tools. It pays to know how they work, though.

[lsaferite]

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.

[famouswaffles]

>the things you told it before are still taken into the matrix multiplication mincers and influence outputs just the same.

Not the same no. Models chooses how much attention to give each token based on all current context. Probably that phrase, or something like it, makes the model give much less attention to those tokens than it would without it.

[awesome_dude]

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

[dns_snek]

> 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 is bad advice.

It's similar to how a model can be given a secret password and instructed not to reveal it to anyone under any circumstances. It's going to reject naive attempts at first, but it's always going to reveal it eventually.

[awesome_dude]

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?

[mediaman]

He is telling you how it mechanically works. Your comment about it “understanding what that means” because it is an NLP seems bizarre, but maybe you mean it in some other way.

Are you proposing that the attention input context is gone, or that the attention mechanism’s context cost is computationally negated in some way, simply because the system processes natural language? Having the attention mechanism selectively isolate context on command would be an important technical discovery.

[typpilol]

I wonder if the AI companies will eventually just have a tool that lets the llm drop it's context mid convo when the user requests it.

[awesome_dude]

I'm telling him... and you... that what I meant by the phrase is exactly how the LLM interpreted it.

For some reason that imbecile thinks that their failure to understand means they know something that's not relevant

How is it relevant what his interpretation of a sentence is if

1. His interpretation is not what I meant

2. The LLM "understood" my intent and behaved in a manner that exactly matched my desire

3. The universe was not deleted (Ok, that would be stupid... like the other individuals stupidity... but here we are)

[phs318u]

Calling other people making comments in good faith “imbecile” or stupid is not awesome dude. It’s against HN rules and the spirit of this site.

[awesome_dude]

Note to everyone - sharing what works leads to complete morons telling you their interpretation... which has no relevance.

Apparently they know better even though

1. They didn't issue the prompt, so they... knew what I was meaning by the phrase (obviously they don't)

2. The LLM/AI took my prompt and interpreted it exactly how I meant it, and behaved exactly how I desired.

3. They then claim that it's about "knowing exactly what's going on" ... even though they didn't and they got it wrong.

This is the advantage of an LLM - if it gets it wrong, you can tell it.. it might persist with an erroneous assumption, but you can tell it to start over (I proved that)

These "humans" however are convinced that only they can be right, despite overwhelming evidence of their stupidity (and that's why they're only JUNIORS in their fields)

[tricorn]

There are problems with either approach, because an LLM is not really thinking.

Always starting over and trying to get it all into one single prompt can be much more work, with no better results than iteratively building up a context (which could probably be proven to sometimes result in a "better" result that could not have been achieved otherwise).

Just telling it to "forget everything, let's start over" will have significantly different results than actually starting over. Whether that is sufficient, or even better than alternatives, is entirely dependent on the problem and the context it is supposed to "forget". If your response had been "try just telling it to start over, it might work and be a lot easier than actually starting over" you might have gotten a better reception. Calling everyone morons because your response indicates a degree of misunderstanding how an LLM operates is not helpful.