I asked ChatGPT a simple baking question today (https://chatgpt.com/share/6a1a1445-cc10-83ea-bf1f-957c07ce7e...), and got this rather strange preamble before my response:

    "Could hidden user memory materially change what I should recommend? **No.**"

A typical answer then followed. Users on Reddit report the behaviour as well (https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1traouv/why_is_it_...), and the linked article suggests this is new.

The thing is, I have memory disabled. So is this an internal prompt just being exposed ("Does the user have any memories that are relevant? No, [because they don't have any].") or does it mean they are in fact keeping hidden memories / context and using these to inform responses, but didn't find anything relevant for this particular question?

While I suspect the former, the possibility of the latter concerns me somewhat.

OpenAI apparently launched "Silent Memory Preflight", which functions as an internal self-audit of "hidden user memories" including an undisclosed knowledge memories layer[1].

[1] https://aiweekly.co/alerts/openai-deploys-silent-memory-pre-...