Why your prompt changes its “personality” after a few runs — Structure Decay explained

Run1: perfect
Run5: slightly off
Run10: “who is this?”

That emotional jump — from perfect to unfamiliar — is the signal that structural collapse has begun.

This shift isn’t random.
It’s what I call structure decay.

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🔍 Why it happens

Inside a single thread, the model gradually mixes:
• your instructions
• its own previous outputs
• and patterns formed earlier in the conversation

As the turns build up, the boundaries soften.
Tone, length, and energy drift naturally.

It feels like the model “changed personality,”
but what’s really collapsing is the structure, not the identity.

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🧪 Memory ON vs OFF

This also came up in yesterday’s follow-up experiment:

With Memory ON, the model keeps pulling from earlier turns, which accelerates structure decay.

With Memory OFF, the model becomes stateless — fully reset on every turn — so:
• fewer mixed signals
• fewer tone shifts
• almost no feedback loops

So side-by-side, it’s clear:
• Memory ON makes Run10 feel like someone else.
• Memory OFF keeps Run1 and Run10 almost the same.

This turns structure decay from a theory
into something you can actually see happen.

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And tomorrow, I’ll share a few simple methods to prevent structure decay.