Exploring AI and Digital Memory

Weeks ago, my sister was reacting to my status about Ed Sheeran’s new song, saying she hadn’t heard anything new from him. I began reviewing all three new tracks he recently released, mentioning that “Old Phone” was my least favourite among them.

Funny enough, much like “From Now On” from The Greatest Showman, Old Phone quietly grew on me. It’s one of those songs that doesn’t shout its brilliance on first listen but burrows deeper the more you sit with it.

Here’s the chorus of the song if you’re not familiar

“Conversations with my dead friends

Messages from all my exes

I kinda think that this was best left

In the past where it belongs

I feel an overwhelming sadness

Of all the friends I do not have left

Seeing how my family has fracturеd

Growing up and moving on..”

Lyrics from “Old Phone” by Ed Sheeran

The chorus reminded me of how upset I was when I lost my WhatsApp chat history a while ago. One reason it hurt was that I couldn’t revisit old conversations with a friend I had lost — a digital echo of a bond that death had already taken away. However, mixed in with those memories were conversations with exes, random rants, and unfinished arguments that no longer deserved a place in my mind.

And yet, here’s the paradox: I love technology. I love data. I am endlessly fascinated by AI, which, let’s face it, is only as powerful as the mountains of data it learns from. History is its lifeblood. To forget is to weaken it.

But for us humans? Endless memory is more complicated.

Listening to Old Phone made me ask: If data fuels AI’s intelligence, but drowns our hearts in nostalgia or regret, where do we draw the line? How much digital memory is healthy? Should we have the right to be forgotten — not just by algorithms, but by ourselves?

We build smarter machines by feeding them our past. But maybe we build healthier lives by sometimes letting that past fade naturally.

So here I am, grateful for AI’s appetite for data, and oddly grateful for my lost WhatsApp archive. Some conversations belong only in memory, not in storage.

What about you? Are you someone who scrolls through old chats and photos, or do you believe some messages are best left deleted?

I’d love to hear where you draw the line.