ChatGPT is weirdly obsessed with goblins. No, seriously. It really, really likes goblins, gremlins and other mythological creatures. It liked them so much that its maker, OpenAI, had to investigate and fix an error that had the popular chatbot using goblins in its answers out of the blue.
Goblin isn’t a computer science term. We are literally talking about goblins, those ugly mythological creatures. Those creepy little guys from The Lord of the Rings. Norman Osborn’s alter ego.
In a blog post that the author clearly had fun writing, OpenAI said: “A single ‘little goblin’ in an answer could be harmless, even charming. Across model generations, though, the habit became hard to miss: the goblins kept multiplying.”
The goblin love was noticeable with ChatGPT-5.1 and newer models. OpenAI reports that after the launch of GPT-5.1, use of “goblin” in ChatGPT answers rose 175%. Use of “gremlin” had risen by 52%.
Keep reading this article on CNET.
