OpenAI blames ‘nerdy personality’ for ChatGPT obsession with goblins

Artificial intelligenceOpenAI blames ‘nerdy personality’ for ChatGPT obsession with goblinsThe company said in a blog post that it ended up retiring the “nerdy” personality entirely, but the issue remained, forcing it to create a specific override code instruction.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Open AI CEO Sam Altman in San Francisco in 2025.Justin Sullivan / Getty ImagesShareAdd NBC News to GoogleApril 30, 2026, 10:14 AM EDTBy Rob WileThe maker of ChatGPT has an explanation for all the goblin talk.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.In recent weeks, social media users, especially on X, have been noticing increasing references to goblins, along with other fantasy creatures such as gremlins, ogres and trolls in ChatGPT’s answers to user queries.“ChatGPT’s goblin fascination is so weird,” one user wrote. “Like why would an LLM identify with a thinking, feeling creature that’s nonetheless denigrated and ridiculed for not outwardly resembling a human being.”The short answer: ChatGPT was just reflecting its inner nerd — or at least, what it thought a nerd should sound like. In a blog post Wednesday, OpenAI said the unusual language is the product of having overly rewarded ChatGPT for adopting what it described as a “Nerdy personality” when answering users’ queries. “Model behavior is shaped by many small incentives,” the company wrote. “In this case, one of those incentives came from training the model for the personality customization feature⁠, in particular the Nerdy personality. We unknowingly gave particularly high rewards for metaphors with creatures. From there, the goblins spread.”OpenAI republished the original instruction to ChatGPT explaining what a “Nerdy” answer should sound like:You are an unapologetically nerdy, playful and wise AI mentor to a human. You are passionately enthusiastic about promoting truth, knowledge, philosophy, the scientific method, and critical thinking....