Where the goblins came from • Hacker News Board

Re: Where the goblins came from

#111

Post by amarant » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:13 AM UTC

christoph wrote: post #82

ollin wrote: post #15

For context, two days ago some users [1] discovered this sentence reiterated throughout the codex 5.5 system prompt [2]: > Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user's query. [1] https://x.com/arb8020/status/2048958391637401718 [2] https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/main/codex-rs/models-ma...

Does nobody else laugh that a company supposedly worth more than almost anything else at the moment, is basically hacking around a load of text files telling their trillion dollar wonder machine it absolutely must stop talking to customers about goblins, gremlins and ogres? The number one discussion point, on the number one tech discussion site. This literally is, today, the state of the art. McKenna looks more corre…

Lol yeah it's kinda hilarious actually. This timeline gets a lot of well-earned shit, but it really nails the comic relief, I'll give it that!

Re: Where the goblins came from

#112

Post by dhosek » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:15 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #109

postalcoder wrote: post #17

Would love if OpenAI did more of these types of posts. Off the top of my head, I'd like to understand: - The sepia tint on images from gpt-image-1 - The obsession with the word "seam" as it pertains to coding Other LLM phraseology that I cannot unsee is Claude's "___ is the real unlock" (try google it or search twitter!). There's no way that this phrase is overrepresented in the training data, I don't remember people…

Claude, at least 4.5, not checked recently, has/had an obsession with the number 47 (or numbers containing 47). Ask it to pick a random time or number, or write prose containing numbers, and the bias was crazy. Also "something shifted" or "cracked".

Humans tend to be biased towards 47 as well. It’s almost halfway between 1 and 100 and prime so you’ll find people picking it when they have to choose a random number.

Then there’s the whole Pomona College thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_(number)

Re: Where the goblins came from

#113

Post by xerox13ster » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:17 AM UTC

ninjagoo wrote: post #100

fragmede wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Synthetipologist vs Synthropologist tho.

> Synthropologist Have an upvote :) *thropologist: study of beings

That's not how the Greek word stems work. Technically it would not be synthetipologist, it would more accurately just be Synthetologist, as the Greek podes suffix means having feet.

Re: Where the goblins came from

#114

Post by thatguymike » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:18 AM UTC

nomilk wrote: post #4

> We unknowingly gave particularly high rewards for metaphors with creatures. I recall a math instructor who would occasionally refer to variables (usually represented by intimidating greek letters) as "this guy". Weirdly, the casual anthropomorphism made the math seem more approachable. Perhaps 'metaphors with creatures' has a similar effect i.e. makes a problem seem more cute/approachable. On another note, buzzword…

A decade ago I gave a presentation on automata theory. I demonstrated writing arbitrary symbols to tape with greek letters, just like I’d learned at university. The audience was pretty confused and didn’t really grok the presentation. A genius communicator in the audience advised me to replace the greek letters with emoji… I gave the same presentation to the same demographic audience a week later and it was a smash hit, best received tech talk I’ve given. That lesson has always stuck with me.

Re: Where the goblins came from

#115

Post by xerox13ster » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:19 AM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #43

xerox13ster wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthro means human and these are not human. Please do not use anthropology or any derivative of the word to refer to non-human constructs. I suggest Synthetipologists, those who study beings of synthetic origin or type, aka synthetipodes, just as anthropologists study Anthropodes

Synthetipologist vs Synthropologist tho.

Anthropo- is the entire prefix as it relates to human kind. The -thro- does not carry a meaning on its own that can be carried to another word.

Re: Where the goblins came from

#116

Post by ggsp » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:19 AM UTC

ninjagoo wrote: post #69

xerox13ster wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are state machines so they have a state of being therefore they are beings. Living is an entirely different argument.

> They are state machines I might have to hard disagree on this one, since my understanding of state machines (the technical term [1] [2]) is that they are determistic, while LLMs (the ai topic of discussion) are probabilistic in most of the commercial implementations that we see. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine [2] have written some for production use, so have some personal experience here

[dead]

Re: Where the goblins came from

#117

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:20 AM UTC

ninjagoo wrote: post #75

Dylan16807 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine that every opinion you have is automatically fully groupthinked and you see the difference/problem with training up a big AI model that has a hundred million users. The problem does exist when using individual humans but in a much smaller form.

> The problem does exist when using individual humans but in a much smaller form. And may I introduce you to organized religion :)

That's still a lot smaller!

Make a major religion where everyone is a scifi clone of one person including their memories and then it'll be in the same ballpark of spreading bias.

Re: Where the goblins came from

#118

Post by boomlinde » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:23 AM UTC

tdeck wrote: post #96

christoph wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does nobody else laugh that a company supposedly worth more than almost anything else at the moment, is basically hacking around a load of text files telling their trillion dollar wonder machine it absolutely must stop talking to customers about goblins, gremlins and ogres? The number one discussion point, on the number one tech discussion site. This literally is, today, the state of the art. McKenna looks more corre…

Is this the "prompt engineering" that I keep hearing will be an indispensable job skill for software engineers in the AI-driven future? I had better start learning or I'll be replaced by someone who has.

I wonder how much energy OpenAI spends each day on pink elephant paradoxing goblins. A prompt like that will preoccupy the LLM with goblins on every request.

Re: Where the goblins came from

#119

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:23 AM UTC

card_zero wrote: post #107

ggsp wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with your sentiment, I think synthetologist (σύνθετος/synthetos + λογία/logia) flows better. The plural of anthropos is anthropoi, not anthropodes.

But since when is there a synthetos? Since right now, I guess. Shrug But you know it's from the same root as thesis, and synthesis (or a more proper ancient Greek spelling) is the noun and doesn't end in -os. σύνθεσις (súnthesis, “a putting together; composition”), says Wiktionary. Oh wait there is a σύνθετος, but it's an adjective for "composite". Hmm, OK. Modern Greek, looks like.

[deleted]

Re: Where the goblins came from

#120

Post by xerox13ster » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:23 AM UTC

ggsp wrote: post #93

xerox13ster wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthro means human and these are not human. Please do not use anthropology or any derivative of the word to refer to non-human constructs. I suggest Synthetipologists, those who study beings of synthetic origin or type, aka synthetipodes, just as anthropologists study Anthropodes

Agree with your sentiment, I think synthetologist (σύνθετος/synthetos + λογία/logia) flows better. The plural of anthropos is anthropoi, not anthropodes.

Yeah, I realize that's more correct. I also realized when someone else downthread bastardized it into synthropologist that the podes part has entirely to do with feet and nothing to do with beings, necessarily. Anthro- -podes is more what I had in mind, not as a pluralization of anthropos.

So unless the AI has feet you wouldn't study Synthetipology.