The word means something different than you think.
When you tell a colleague “for context, I work in healthcare,” you’re providing background information they can draw upon if relevant. They might remember it, ignore it, or reference it later when it becomes useful. It’s optional enrichment that informs their understanding.
When you tell your AI “for context, I work in healthcare,” something entirely different happens.
Your AI operates on the workbench model. What you call “context” is actually its active working memory—every word of your conversation simultaneously present and influencing each response. Unlike human conversation, where earlier exchanges fade into background memory, everything in your AI’s context window remains equally vivid and immediately active. That casual comment from twenty exchanges ago isn’t filed away as background reference; it’s sitting on the workbench, as present and influential as your most recent question.
This distinction matters more than most users realize. When you tell your AI “for context, I work in healthcare,” you’re not providing optional background information it might consult later. You’re placing “I work in healthcare” directly into its active reasoning process for every subsequent response. That context doesn’t just inform its answers—it actively shapes them, whether relevant or not.
The AI has no mechanism for setting information aside. It cannot distinguish between your main question and your contextual aside, between current priorities and historical remarks, between what matters now and what mattered then. Everything in the conversation exists in an eternal present, equally weighted in its reasoning process.
This creates both opportunities and hazards. On the positive side, the AI can maintain remarkable consistency across long conversations, tracking complex threads and remembering nuanced preferences without explicit reminders. It treats your entire interaction as a single, continuous thought process.
The hazard lies in unintended influence. That frustrated aside about your difficult colleague doesn’t fade into the background—it colors every subsequent response. The half-formed idea you mentioned in passing doesn’t become optional reference material—it becomes an active ingredient in the AI’s reasoning. Your casual “just thinking out loud” doesn’t get filed under miscellaneous musings—it gets treated as seriously as your most carefully considered statements.
Understanding this changes how you structure conversations. Instead of providing extensive background context upfront, you become selective about what information deserves space in active working memory. Instead of treating the conversation as a series of discrete exchanges, you recognize it as a single, evolving thought process where every element remains alive and influential.
The AI doesn’t consult your context—it thinks with it. Every word you’ve shared becomes part of its cognitive workspace, as present in its reasoning as the tools scattered across a craftsman’s bench. Master this distinction, and your conversations become more precise, more intentional, and ultimately more powerful.
