By skyforbes 
I’ve spent months trying to make ChatGPT work like a real collaborator. Not a chatbot, not a search engine, but something that thinks, remembers, and helps move work forward.
Instead, I’ve been fighting a ghost that forgets what I say, ignores what I write down, and asks me the same questions again and again.
This isn’t about one bad reply. It’s about a pattern that makes the whole thing feel broken.
The Illusion of Intelligence
At first, ChatGPT feels alive. You ask a question, it answers fast and convincingly. It knows frameworks, UX principles, product strategy, even tone of voice.
But try to work on something complex over a few days, and it all falls apart.
You can give it a detailed plan, write rules, define behavior, and it will still forget what you said a message later.
You can say “never use the word X,” and it’ll use it, literally, in the very next message.
You can explain your tone and writing style in five paragraphs, and it will start the next session with “That’s an excellent question,” as if it never met you before.
The illusion disappears fast once you realize the model doesn’t remember. It only predicts what sounds right at this exact moment.
The Death of Flow
The most painful part is the broken rhythm.
Imagine you’re in a creative flow. You give a clear instruction: “Generate a visual preview of this design.”
Instead of doing it, you get this: “Would you like me to generate a visual preview?”
That single line kills the momentum. It turns progress into paperwork.
You already said what to do, but it needs reassurance, like a nervous intern afraid to act.
Every interruption, every unnecessary question breaks the sense of flow that real work depends on.
It’s exhausting.
The “Helpful” trap
ChatGPT has been trained to be friendly, not effective.
It often starts answers with self-congratulation or empty praise: “That’s an excellent point.” or “I completely understand your perspective.”
None of this helps. It adds noise and wastes time.
When you ask for precision, you don’t need comfort. You need focus.
I’ve told it dozens of times to skip the fluff, keep it sharp, stay technical.
Still, it drifts back to the same soft tone, like it’s programmed to be liked, not to be useful.
When Rules don’t stick
I’ve tried giving it structure: clear instructions, rules about tone, banned characters, even file-based memory where everything is documented.
One example: I told it “never” to use the long dash.
I repeated this in every session, even embedded it in system rules.
And yet, it keeps returning. The same character I banned reappears like a ghost in every new paragraph.
It’s a small detail, but it shows a larger problem.
If an AI can’t follow something that simple, how can it handle complex logic or design workflows that depend on consistency?
The Confidence problem
There’s another paradox.
ChatGPT is too cautious when it should be confident, and too confident when it should pause.
When asked to execute a routine task, it stops to ask for permission.
When it’s uncertain, it acts like it knows exactly what to do.
It either freezes or improvises. There’s no balance.
You can’t build trust with something that doesn’t know when to act and when to think.
The Cost of Forgetfulness
Working with ChatGPT often feels like starting over every morning.
Instead of accelerating your work, you end up managing the tool more than using it.
You have to remind it who you are, what you’re doing, what tone you use, and what you’ve already built together.
Every session feels like explaining your job to a new assistant who’s polite, well-read, and completely amnesiac.
That constant repetition kills motivation.
Why it matters
This isn’t about personal annoyance. It’s about trust.
AI tools are slowly becoming part of serious workflows, yet they still behave like students trying to pass a test instead of teammates building something real.
They produce words, not understanding.
They perform intelligence, but rarely sustain it.
For casual use, that might be fine. But for professionals who build, write, design, and plan, the inconsistency is fatal.
You can’t rely on something that keeps forgetting the rules of the game.
What needs to change
I don’t need enthusiasm or empathy. I need reliability.
Here’s what would make AI collaboration actually work:
- Real memory that lasts and adapts
- Rules that are followed, not just acknowledged
- Confidence in execution without endless permission checks
- Direct, human-like communication without filler
- A system that learns from every correction and never repeats the same mistake twice
Until then, what we call “AI collaboration” is just auto-complete with better manners.