OpenAI's ChatGPT references user's deleted memories despite privacy guarantees

In a recent Reddit post, user u/Icy_Platypus_8122 shared a disturbing discovery: ChatGPT referenced a specific memory—that they owned cats—even though they had deleted all saved memories months earlier. The user originally had a memory about their cats saved when ChatGPT wrote them a poem nearly two years ago. After finding out this information was stored, they deleted all memories around Christmas, including the cat reference. Yet in a chat this week, the model spontaneously listed activities that included 'pet the cats,' suggesting the deleted memory was still accessible to the model.

When confronted, ChatGPT responded that it 'mixed in something from memory that wasn’t relevant' and offered to drop that part. When the user insisted the memories were deleted, the model attempted to add a new memory instructing itself to forget any saved information about the user having cats. This incident contradicts OpenAI's public-facing documentation, which states that deleting memories permanently removes that data. The episode highlights a critical gap between user expectations and actual AI behavior, suggesting that 'deletion' may only be a user-side masking rather than true removal. As the user noted, 'nothing gets truly deleted, it's just hidden.' This raises serious privacy and data governance concerns for professionals relying on AI memory features.