- ChatGPT has been mentioning goblins unusually frequently for some time.
- The mentions were seemingly caused by a training quirk for ChatGPT’s retired “nerdy” personality type.
- A specific instruction in GPT-5.5 should tamp down on the inappropriate goblin mentions.
Earlier this week, a post on the ChatGPT subreddit pointed out an eyebrow-raising instruction in the system prompt for new GPT-5.5 model: an explicit restriction on mentioning goblins, gremlins, and trolls, among other things, unless strictly relevant to the query at hand. OpenAI’s addressed its recent models’ fascination with the creatures, and it turns out it’s mostly down to the chatbot’s former nerdy-style personality mode.
ChatGPT lets users choose from a number of preselected style and tone combinations, which OpenAI calls personalities. There are options to make the bot affect several personalities — professional, efficient, quirky — in its responses, including, at one time, one OpenAI wanted to be “unapologetically nerdy.” In a blog post, the company says that although that nerdy setting only applied to about one in 40 ChatGPT responses while it was available, it really liked talking about mythical creatures: two-thirds of all uses of the word “goblin” came from interactions in the nerdy style, which OpenAI retired last month.
