Some chatgpt users have noticed a strange phenomenon lately: occasionally, chatbot refers to them by name as they reason through problems. This was not the predetermined behavior before, and some users claim that Chatgpt is mentioning their names despite never being told what to call them.
Reviews are mixed. A user, Simon Willison’s software developer and enthusiastic, called the feature “Creepy and unnecessary”. Another developer, Nick Dobos, said “hated it”. A frugal search of X creates a number of confused users from-and-careful i-esteem of the first name chatgt name base.
“Likes as a teacher continues to call my name, lol,” wrote one user. “Yes, I don’t like it.”
Does anyone like the thing where O3 uses your name in his thought chain, as opposed to his bored and unnecessary finding? pic.twitter.com/lyrby6bk6j
– Simon Willison (@simonw) April 17, 2025
It is not clear when, exactly, the change has occurred, or if it is about the up -to -date “memory” feature of the chatgpt that allows chatbot equation in past conversations to personalize his answers. Some users on X say the chatgpt began to call them with their names even though they would disable the memory and personalization settings related.
Openai did not respond to Techcrunch’s request for comment.
It feels strange to see your name in the model’s thoughts. Is there a reason to add it? Will it make it better or just make more mistakes as I did in my gitub repot? @Openai O4-Mini-High, are you really using it in order quickly? Pic.twitter.com/j1vv7arbx4
– Pattanayak Debasish (@drabmath) April 16 2025
In any case, hitting the shock illustrates the Uncanny Openai valley can fight to overcome in its efforts to make more “personal” chatgt for the people who use it. Last week, the company’s general manager, Sam Altman, hinted that the systems that “know you in your life” to become “extremely useful and personalized”. But judging by this last wave of reactions, not everyone is sold for the idea.
An article published by the Valens Clinic, a Dubai psychiatry office, can shed light on visceral reactions to the use of the chatgt name. Names convey intimacy. But when a person – or chatbot, as appropriate – uses a very name, he is encountered as unauthentic.
“Using an individual’s name when addressing them directly is a powerful relationship of relationship development,” writes Valens. “This indicates acceptance and admiration. However, undesirable or extravagant use can be viewed as false and invading.”
In a similar way, perhaps another reason that many people do not love chatgt using their name is that it feels raised by bacon-a clumsy attempt to anthropomorphic a world without emotion. In the same way that most people would not want their toast to call them by their name, they do not want the chatgt to “pretend” to understand the importance of a name.
This reporter certainly found that worrying when O3 in Chatgpt earlier this week said he was doing research on “Kyle”. (Since Friday, the change in appearance had been returned; O3 called me “user”.) He had the opposite of the target effect – poking holes in the illusion that basic models are everything more than programmable, synthetic things.
