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I'm still shocked that there isn't basic functionality in chatgpt that allows you to fork conversations to have subtopical conversational threads off of a main one.

For example, I'm asking deep philosophical questions, or maybe reaching for a STEM concept slightly beyond my understanding, and that inevitably requires me to ask subquestions (eg "okay wait, what are Conformal Fields?"). Doing so still forces me to do a linear conversational format, and it just isn't functional.

Blows my mind that with all the great big AI minds at OpenAI they still can't do basic functionality.

-- edit --

Like seriously, for some of us old heads, imagine having this in undergrad: a professor in your pocket that can handle your arbitrarily stupid recitation questions, one on one, with infinite patience. I think I could have aced electrodynamics and Calc III instead of just pulling Bs.



You can do this at grok.com.

There is a "start thread" option below every conversation. You can also read the responses aloud (helpful if you want to do something async).


Oh cool! Finally!!!

Unfortunately, it looks to only support single subthreads. But my questions have questions sometimes. I want to subthread conversations to arbitrary depth. If they can subconvo once, they can do it arbitrarily.

Thanks for pointing this out.


There is! If you click on the three dots menu of a response, there is a “Branch in new chat” option.

I just discovered it today and feel like it’s new.


It isn’t present on mobile (at least on iOS) unfortunately. I use it all the time on the web though, and it’s very useful.


And now it's gone on web this morning. I'm not sure if something in the conversation blocks it or if it's part of some A/B test.


My ChatGPT doesn't have a three dots menu on iOS or macOS.


Oof. I won't be using this. The implementation is terrible: just forks a new tab in my browser (at least on Firefox). I want a horizontally scrolling view, clickable highlights that specify my subconversational contextual focus.


Maybe you haven’t seen this yet, but there is a (recent) option to fork a conversation when you click on the thee dots of a reply.


I think I have always been able to have branching conversations via editing a comment.

The interface remembers both the old and new conversation thread and you can switch between them.

It seems like the new "Branch in new chat" feature mostly creates a new chat at the top level rather then the existing functionality of editing a comment and branching in the same chat.


Doing so still forces me to do a linear conversational format, and it just isn't functional.

So A"I" isn't I... huh, who would've thought.


I came across this that seems to do exactly that

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/chatgpt-side-...

It’s closed source though, I haven’t tried it.


Thanks for sharing. I unzipped the .xpi file and threw it through a couple of static malware analyzers. Not seeing anything. Doesn't mean it's safe, but means I might be dumb enough to try it. Looks pretty cool.




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