A GPT-5.4 bug led to OpenAI banning goblins and raccoons
Someone found this in OpenAI Codex’s system prompt:
"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."
Goblins, gremlins, trolls, ogres - the fantasy quartet, fine. I get it. Perhaps someone asked Codex to write something and got back a Runescape goblin lore deep-dive.
But pigeons? Raccoons? These are deployment-environment animals.
If not for raccoons, who’d do the garbage collection?
RFC 1149 (IP over Avian Carriers, 1990, an actual protocol - with an actual implementation, in Bergen) puts pigeons squarely inside the systems-engineering canon.
“Or other animals or creatures” - full anti-creature agenda. Literally a bajillion dollars get set on fire every hour processing these prompts.
Turns out there’s a reason for the ban. Back in 5.4, GPT developed a goblin obsession and there are reddit threads full of users whose ChatGPT couldn’t stop bringing up gremlins. The system prompt is the exorcism that shipped with 5.5.
If you think I’m lying, see for yourselves: the prompt is right there in the repo link shared below.
REPO LINK: https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/de2ccf94735a3d8a2a7077e...
HN LINK: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47319285
REDDIT THREAD 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1roci77/anyone_els...
REDDIT THREAD 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1rll8hb/suddenly_o... "Unfortunately, GPT‑5.5 started training before we found the root cause of the goblins. When we began testing GPT‑5.5 in Codex, OpenAI employees immediately noticed the strange affinity for goblins, and we added a developer-prompt instruction (opens in a new window) to mitigate. Codex is, after all, quite nerdy."