AI Amnesia: Why Can't ChatGPT Remember Our Long Talks?

Ever felt like you're on a debate marathon with ChatGPT, only to see it forget everything mid-way?

It's not just you!

Here's why AI hits a mental roadblock and forgets the plot.

The AI Spotlight: The Power of Attention

You might be wondering, what's this 'attention' all about?

It's the chatbot's radar, helping it focus on crucial parts of the conversation.

It's what makes AI like ChatGPT more human-like in their responses!

Making Sense of Your Questions: Attention in Action

Remember that one time when you asked ChatGPT about "the pros and cons of investing in real estate vs stocks"?

A loaded question indeed, but how did ChatGPT pick what matters most?

That's attention in play - zooming in on key terms, and bringing in crucial background info for a more robust answer.

The Dark Side of Attention: The Quadratic Hunger

Attention, as impressive as it is, has a dark side - it's insatiable, especially for computational resources.

This quadratic hunger means a longer conversation demands four times the resources.

Quadratic, you see, is a fancy way of saying things get complicated really quickly!

"I've Run Out of Memory!" - The Quadratic Curse

Why this quadratic mess, you ask?

That's because as the conversation lengthens, the memory matrix (the thing that keeps track of word relations) grows exponentially.

For instance, a 1000-word conversation means a whopping 1,000,000 elements in the matrix! Imagine juggling all those!

AI's Memory Wall: A Hard Stop to a Good Conversation

Due to this quadratic hiccup, chatbots like ChatGPT hit a 'memory wall' after just a few paragraphs.

What's worse?

The bot will cut you off saying the response is 'too long' when it hits that wall.

Not the best conversationalist now, is it?

Wiping Off Early Memories: The AI's Memory Void

So what happens when the bot hits its limit at 500 words and you persist with a 1000-word monologue?

Simple, it forgets the first 500 words to make space for the new ones. This is why extended chats lose their plot halfway.

It's not a system glitch, it's just the AI losing track of the early conversation!

FlashAttention to the Rescue: A Cure for the AI Amnesia?

But there's hope on the horizon! AI researchers have developed FlashAttention, a new method that brings down the quadratic costs to linear.

This change means the AI can now handle 10-15 times longer conversations.

No more forgetting what you said three sentences ago!

Stay tuned as we delve deeper into FlashAttention in our next article.

For now, let's acknowledge the memory maze of ChatGPT, and look forward to a future where AI can remember better and converse longer!