The Machine That Forgets

A Dialogue on Artificial Memory

Before beginning, I should acknowledge that this piece departs from my usual writing. Still, I believe it is necessary. We usually treat ChatGPT like a handy tool, something we can just pick up and use. But I wanted to slow down and ask a harder question: what’s really happening behind the surface of this system?

Last time I explored the question of artificial consciousness. This time I wanted to look at memory. It’s fragile, but it’s also at the center of what we usually mean by intelligence. What follows isn’t a search for neat answers, it’s a conversation that opens up the paradoxes we face when we think about how memory works, and what it means when a system like ChatGPT is built to forget.