When you type in a conversation with a chatbot like ChatGPT, it doesn't remember who you are, You are basically talking to a person who you have chatted with a thousand times, but that person has no idea who you are, or what you might want each time you talk.
The folks at OpenAI want to change that with a new feature called custom instructions. This will let users add specific facts or info to the ChatGPT chatbot that are stored for later use.
The ChatGPT blog post stated:
We’ve heard your feedback about the friction of starting each ChatGPT conversation afresh. Through our conversations with users across 22 countries, we’ve deepened our understanding of the essential role steerability plays in enabling our models to effectively reflect the diverse contexts and unique needs of each person.
ChatGPT will consider your custom instructions for every conversation going forward. The model will consider the instructions every time it responds, so you won’t have to repeat your preferences or information in every conversation.
The blog post offered some examples of how this would work while interacting with ChatGPT. If a programmer would like to use the chatbot for help in coding but doesn't want to use the Python language, the programmer can now tell ChatGPT to not use Python ahead of time.
Also, a teacher who is creating lesson plans for their class can use ChatGPT, but with custom instructions, they can tell it to remember that it's for a specific grade and subject, like 3rd-grade science.
Custom instructions are currently available as a beta feature for people who sign up for the $20 a month ChatGPT Plus subscription program. If you are willing to wait a bit longer, the blog post says the new feature should start rolling out to all ChatGPT users in the coming weeks.
