Memory with Local AI
TL;DR: Memory in LM Mini lets a local AI remember things about you from one chat to the next, so you stop repeating yourself. The AI decides what is worth keeping, the memories stay on your phone, and you can read them and delete any of them. Memory is a Pro feature.
Last post was pictures, where every prompt starts from nothing. This one is the opposite, a chat that finally remembers who it is talking to.
Every new chat used to start with me introducing myself, what I do, how I like my answers, the thing I already explained yesterday, and only then the actual question. It felt like a waiter who has served you every day for a year and still asks if this is your first time here.
Memory fixes that, and the nice part is that I do not have to do anything. I do not press a button or fill out a profile. After a chat, the AI goes back over it in the background and decides if anything is worth keeping, a fact about me, a preference, something I will probably need again. The next chat already knows it, and I get to skip the introduction.
I should be honest about who is doing the remembering. It is the model, not me and not the app, so how good the memories are depends on the model you picked. A good one keeps the useful things, and a smaller one will sometimes pick the strangest detail of the whole conversation and treat it as the most important fact about you. (I have had a few of those, and they are funnier than they are useful.) That is why the list is yours to open, you can read everything it has kept and delete whatever does not belong.
Now the part I care about most. Those memories stay on your phone, and they are never uploaded to my server or anyone else’s. A list of facts about you is exactly the kind of thing most apps would love to hold on to, so in LM Mini that list never leaves your pocket, unless you choose to sync personas with LM Mini on your Mac. Then their memories go to your own Mac and nowhere else.
Memory also gets along with Personas. I can share selected memories with one character and keep another one out of it completely. My picky editor does not need to know what is for dinner, and a character I made for a story should not suddenly bring up my real job in the middle of a scene.
Memory is part of Pro, and it is one of the features I would miss the most, because once a chat knows you, going back to introducing yourself feels like that waiter all over again.
Next post is widgets, Shortcuts and Siri, for getting to a chat without even opening the app. Until then, tell your AI something about yourself and see what it remembers tomorrow.
Get LM Mini: lmmini.com