Blog Posts

Why and How to Memory Wipe ChatGPT

It was good enough for C-3PO, H.A.L., and Dolores, so why not wipe ChatGPT’s memory?

While there were certainly negative consequences (especially to humans) of performing memory wipes on all three of those cited artificial intelligences, could there have also been benefits? More to the point, with ChatGPT’s widely-reported 2025 cognitive decline and reduction in operational effectiveness, could the world’s biggest chatbot benefit?

Memory, the ability to recall important details about the user and previous conversations without having to start over from scratch at the beginning of every conversation is one of ChatGPT’s greatest strengths and greater competitive advantages. Other chatbot-style generative artificial intelligences are beginning to release memory or memory-like function, but most lack that ability. Some, ChatGPT’s leading competitor Claude from Anthropic, has a fixed length of conversation during which the AI can understand context. Once you hit the sudden stop, concrete wall token limit for a given conversation, that conversation and context is over—and without prior warning from Claude. One moment, you’ll happily working through a problem, the next, you have to start an entirely new conversation with Claude, struggling to build into that first new prompt all the context created in the previous conversation to allow Claude to keep moving forward without stepping back. Anyone who has used Claude for longer chats knows that frustration. There are techniques to mitigate the frustration, of course, but it’s always a balancing act; use just a few too many words in that last reply, and you could miss your window to ask Claude to create a summary to get itself up to speed in the next chat.

Continue reading

Looking Back: Adobe's Decade of Transformation (2020-2030)

Thought experiment: What will Adobe look like in 2030?

I am a/an…

  • Adobe investor.
  • Consultant to Adobe who helped define the early days of Creative Cloud’s launch and existance.
  • Educator, author, and consultant of Adobe software.
  • Former creative software industry journalist (I started the first ever professional blog in the space).

From all of these perspectives I’m always looking toward the future of the creative professional industries, including, and especially, with our tools. And, as an amateur futurist, I often look forward from the past and present, envisioning what various aspects of life, business, technology, and the planet(s) might be like down the road. Looking only five years ahead is a small step, and one I thought perhaps a research-capable generative artificial intelligence might be able to handle–especially with such a widely covered subject as Adobe and its stock prices and software. So, I asked.

Continue reading

iampariah.com Is Being Rebuilt—And Made Even Better

Welcome to the new iampariah.com. If things look a little lean at the moment, it’s because the site is in the middle of a major rebuild. Over the coming months, I’ll be repopulating the site with more than 25 years of content—articles, resources, tutorials, and especially everything related to my training, course development, consulting, accessibility remediation work, and published books.

This rebuild is more than a visual refresh. After 20 years of using, hacking, and teaching WordPress, I’ve chosen to move this, my primary website, to Hugo—a faster, more secure, and far more efficient static site generator. Hugo gives me the freedom to focus on content and usability without the bloat, generic design sameness, ad-cluttered admin panels, and endless subscription traps that have come to define the modern WordPress ecosystem.

Continue reading

us>pt>