ChatGPT’s goblin problem: The unintended consequences of teaching AI to be nerdy | Explained News
In a somewhat unusual post earlier this week, ChatGPT makers OpenAI said that starting with GPT-5.1, their models had developed a “strange habit” — “They increasingly mentioned goblins, gremlins, and other creatures in their metaphors.” This meant that even normal queries to the AI chatbot would result in random inclusion of the folklore creatures, often associated with mischievous and evil tendencies, and featuring in works of fantasy and science fiction. In the post, OpenAI attributed this to how the behaviour of such models is shaped, particularly the role of “incentives”. OpenAI said that a safety researcher first flagged the issue, but they clearly saw the pattern first in November 2025, after the GPT‑5.1 launch. “Users complained about the model being oddly overfamiliar in conversation, which prompted an investigation into specific verbal tics. A safety researcher had experienced a few “goblins” and “gremlins” and asked that they be included in the check. When we looked, use of “goblin” in ChatGPT had risen by 175% after the launch of GPT‑5.1, while “gremlin” had risen by 52%,” it …
