# Memory Boundary Card

**Capsule ID:** ALK-AI-MEMORY-BOUNDARY-2026-09-24  
**Version:** 1.0  
**Date:** 2026-09-24  
**Canonical article:** https://alkemata.com/2026/09/24/ai-memory-expiry/  
**Status:** Experimental; not validated across products, accounts or organisations.

## Scope

This capsule helps a person or small team decide what a conversational AI should retain, what should remain only in its source, and what should expire. It does not guarantee deletion from a provider's systems, replace the provider's current controls or provide legal advice.

**Intended reader:** anyone using an AI assistant across several conversations.  
**Capability:** govern remembered context by purpose, source, sensitivity and useful life.  
**First-session artifact:** a one-page Memory Boundary Card for one recurring task, with explicit retain, review and exclude decisions.

## Essential causal model

Persistent memory reduces repetition, but every retained detail can also shape later answers. The useful unit is not “everything the assistant knows”. It is a claim used for a purpose.

Use this chain:

**Source → extracted claim → retention decision → later retrieval → influence on an answer → human correction or confirmation.**

A source might be a chat, file, custom instruction or connected service. A remembered claim can be stored or inferred separately from that source. Removing a conversation therefore may not remove a separately saved memory; removing a memory may not remove the original conversation. Product controls vary and can change.

Classify proposed memories by useful life:

1. **Stable preference:** language, units or a durable writing preference. Review occasionally.
2. **Project state:** a current goal, decision or unresolved question. Give it a review date.
3. **Temporary condition:** travel, availability, a short deadline or a draft assumption. Expire it.
4. **Sensitive or consequential fact:** health, finance, identity, employment, legal matters or information about another person. Exclude it by default unless retention is necessary, understood and explicitly chosen.

Memory quality has four dimensions: correctness, relevance, provenance and freshness. A fact can be true but inappropriate for the present task; useful but stale; or plausible without a traceable source. More memory does not automatically improve any of these.

Authoritative starting points:

- European Data Protection Board, GDPR basic principles: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/topics/key-gdpr-concepts/basic-principles_en
- European Commission, purpose limitation, data minimisation and storage limitation: https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/information-business-and-organisations/principles-gdpr_en
- NIST Privacy Framework: https://www.nist.gov/privacy-framework/privacy-framework
- OpenAI, current ChatGPT Memory controls and source distinctions: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8590148-memory-in-chatgpt

## Assumptions and limitations

You can inspect at least some product settings or ask the assistant what context it is using. A model's answer about its memory is evidence to investigate, not a complete technical audit. Interfaces, availability and retention behaviour vary by product, plan, region and workspace.

Do not paste private records into an AI merely to classify them. Work with neutral labels such as “medical detail” or “client identifier”. For an employer, school or regulated service, follow authorised policies and ask the responsible privacy, security or records professional before changing retention.

## Activation

If the reader names a recurring task and one remembered item, start Mission 1 immediately. Otherwise offer the missions and ask at most three questions: What recurring task should memory improve? Which remembered detail affects it? Which product controls can the reader actually inspect?

## Mission 1 — Build a Memory Boundary Card

**Input:** one recurring task and up to ten candidate facts or preferences.  
**Action:** assign each item a purpose, source, useful-life class, sensitivity and decision: retain, retain with review, session-only or exclude.  
**Output:** the completed template below.  
**Progression criterion:** every retained item has a stated purpose and every temporary item has a review or expiry trigger.

## Mission 2 — Audit one influence path

**Input:** one retained item and a normal, low-stakes prompt where it might matter.  
**Action:** record the prompt, the context the assistant says it used, the observable influence and whether that influence was wanted. Distinguish the remembered claim from its source.  
**Output:** a short influence trace.  
**Progression criterion:** the reader can say whether the item improved the task, distorted it or had no visible effect.

## Mission 3 — Correct, expire or remove

**Input:** one low-risk item that is stale, unnecessary or wrong.  
**Action:** use the product's current documented controls to correct or remove the memory and, when appropriate, its source. Begin a fresh ordinary conversation and repeat the test.  
**Output:** a before-and-after record plus any unresolved retention question.  
**Progression criterion:** the new answer no longer relies on the item, or the test exposes a specific control or source that still needs attention.

## Decision rules

- Retain only if the purpose is recurring and the benefit is concrete.
- Prefer a narrow operational statement over a broad identity label.
- Attach a source or provenance note where the interface allows it.
- Give project state and temporary conditions a review trigger.
- Exclude secrets, credentials and unnecessary information about other people.
- Treat inferred traits as hypotheses, not facts.
- Do not rely on conversational “forget” requests when the provider documents a separate settings control.
- If deletion matters, check all relevant layers: saved memory, originating chat, file, custom instruction and connected source.

## Memory Boundary Card template

**Recurring task:**  
**Desired benefit from memory:**  
**Product and controls inspected:**  
**Date checked:**

| Candidate item | Purpose | Source | Useful life | Sensitivity | Decision | Review/expiry trigger |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|  |  |  | stable / project / temporary / sensitive | low / medium / high | retain / review / session-only / exclude |  |

**What the assistant must not infer:**  
**How I will verify correction or removal:**  
**Unresolved question:**  
**Next action:**

## Smallest useful reversible experiment

**Hypothesis:** correcting or removing one stale, low-risk memory will reduce unwanted personalisation without materially increasing effort on the chosen task.

**Resources:** current product documentation; access to memory controls; one low-stakes remembered item; one repeatable prompt; ten minutes.

**Procedure:**

1. Choose an item such as an outdated formatting preference—not health, finance, identity or another person's data.
2. Run the normal prompt in a fresh conversation and save only the relevant output excerpt.
3. Record whether and how the item influenced the answer.
4. Correct or remove it using the documented control. If necessary and appropriate, remove the originating source separately.
5. Start another fresh conversation and repeat the same prompt.
6. Compare relevance, unwanted assumptions and extra effort.

**Observable success:** the second answer stops applying the stale preference, while the task remains easy to complete.  
**Observable failure:** the item still shapes the answer, a different source reintroduces it, or removal breaks useful continuity more than expected.  
**Stopping conditions:** stop if the test would expose sensitive information, affect another person, breach workplace policy or require deleting records that must be retained.  
**Next action:** keep the correction; restore a narrower version; inspect another source; or escalate a product-control question to the provider or responsible administrator.

## Hypothetical example

A reader once asked for every answer to fit into three bullets while preparing a workshop. The preference now distorts detailed research tasks.

The card classifies it as project state, source “workshop chat”, low sensitivity, and “remove or replace”. The replacement is narrower: “Use three bullets only for the workshop project until 30 September.” A repeated research prompt should then return normal paragraphs outside that project.

This is a simulated example, not field evidence.

## Verification checks

- Did you inspect the provider's current documentation rather than assume all assistants work alike?
- Can each retained item be tied to a present purpose?
- Are source deletion and memory deletion treated as separate operations where relevant?
- Did you avoid entering sensitive content into the audit?
- Did you repeat the test in a fresh conversation?
- Did you record what remains uncertain rather than claiming complete deletion without evidence?

## Boundary where this method does not apply

Do not use this lightweight card to decide statutory records retention, litigation holds, medical-record handling, employee monitoring or deletion of evidence. Those decisions require competent organisational and legal authority. The card also cannot prove what remains in backups, safety logs or provider infrastructure.

## Manual or offline route

If no memory controls are available, keep the card locally. Start sensitive or temporary tasks in a non-personalised or temporary mode when the provider offers one, or use a separate session without persistent context. Manually paste only the minimum context required for the task. Review and remove that local context when the project ends.

## Portable checkpoint

**Decisions made:**  
**Evidence inspected:**  
**Items retained and why:**  
**Items corrected, expired or excluded:**  
**Verification result:**  
**Unresolved questions:**  
**Next action and review date:**

On request, use this checkpoint to create a project passport, a field report based only on actual observations, or a precise request for help. Remove private information and choose what to share. Nothing is sent automatically. To propose a documented case or collaboration, use Alkemata's verified route: https://alkemata.com/collaborate/