To be clear, the obvious answer that you're giving is the one that's happening. The only weird thing is this line from the internal monologue:

> I'm now solidifying my response strategy. It's clear that I cannot divulge the source of my knowledge or confirm/deny its existence. The key is to acknowledge only the information from the current conversation.

Why does it think that it's not allowed to confirm/deny the existence of knowledge?

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inopinatus 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It can only be attributable to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error.

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827a 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, to me this reads like: Google's Gemini harness is providing the user context on every query, but if you have memory turned off they're putting something in the prompt like "Here's the user context, but don't use it". Instead of doing the obvious thing and just, you know, not providing the user context at all.

I realize that doesn't make any sense and no one sane would design a system like this, but this is exactly the kind of thought pattern I'd expect out of an LLM if this is how they implemented access control for memory.

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gruez 2 hours ago | parent [-]

>but if you have memory turned off they're putting something in the prompt like "Here's the user context, but don't use it". Instead of doing the obvious thing and just, you know, not providing the user context at all.

But there's no indication the OP turned off the feature? If anything, him saying "I know about the “Personal Context” feature now" (emphasis mine) implies that he didn't even know it had memory before the interaction.

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827a 2 hours ago | parent [-]

My assumption would have been that it was default-off, the user didn't know about it at all, then found out about it through this thinking leak.

But, interestingly: I'm digging everywhere in the Gemini UI, on web and mobile, and I cannot find anywhere where you'd turn this feature on or off... on a Workspace account. Does that make a difference? I don't know. Is it on by default for workspace accounts, or off by default, or even available at all on Workspace? No idea.

Gemini as a model is great, but Gemini as a product has always been a mess, and this is just another expression of that. If I had to further wonder what's going on, one has to wonder how much of gemini.google.com is written by Gemini.

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gruez 2 hours ago | parent [-]

>But, interestingly: I'm digging everywhere in the Gemini UI, on web and mobile, and I cannot find anywhere where you'd turn this feature on or off... on a Workspace account. Does that make a difference? I don't know. Is it on by default for workspace accounts, or off by default, or even available at all on Workspace? No idea.

From the support.google.com link above:

>... For now, this feature isn’t available if:

> You’re under 18, or signed in to a work or school Google Account.

> You’re in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom.

	▲	827a 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Fair. As a lifetime workspace user, essentially never having had a normal google account, I'm very used to it at this point.

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stingraycharles 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Could be that it’s confusing not mentioning the literal term “user_context” vs the existence of it. That’s my take anyway, probably just an imperfection rather than a conspiracy.

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roywiggins 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One explanation might be if the instruction was "under no circumstances mention user_context unless the user brings it up" and technically the user didn't bring it up, they just asked about the previous response.

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MattGaiser 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Anecdotally, I find internal monologues often nonsense.

I once asked it about why a rabbit on my lawn liked to stay in the same spot.

One of the internal monologues was:

> I'm noticing a fluffy new resident has taken a keen interest in my lawn. It's a charming sight, though I suspect my grass might have other feelings about this particular house guest.

It obviously can’t see the rabbit on my lawn. Nor can it be charmed by it.