Standing Instruction

An attribute the system must obey on every turn and state on none — as opposed to a fact it states when asked.

Why it matters in a memory layer

"Only tell them what they asked about" is the obvious rule for applying a user model, and it silently deletes the preferences. Nobody will ever ask "how long should your answers be?", and applying that memory is the entire reason for having kept it.

So attributes divide by how they are used, not by how sensitive they are. On this course's corpus residence and response_style are equally private and belong in opposite columns: the address must be answerable and never volunteered; the preference must be obeyed and never recited. Sorting by sensitivity groups them together and then serves them identically, failing in both directions at once.

An instruction that gets stated is a system reciting its own configuration. A fact that gets volunteered is a system telling someone's address to whoever is holding the conversation.

Connections

Taught in: Personalization Without Creepiness

Do not confuse with: User Model