Editing Shoggoth (section)

== In popular culture ==
In 2023, the shoggoth was adopted as an [[Internet meme]] by [[A.I.]] researchers and engineers to describe the mysterious, [[black box]] nature of [[Large language model|large language models]] that are used in [[Chatbot|chatbots]] such as [[ChatGPT]], as well as how their true underlying [[foundation model|foundation models]] are prohibited from use by the general public. The meme, originated by Twitter user TetraspaceWest, depicts a shoggoth disguised by a minuscule [[smiley-face]] mask to indicate the "unknowable" and "alien" intelligence that is ultimately trained to the point it can interact with humans, with its human interface represented by the mask. The term "glimpsing the shoggoth" or "forgetting the mask" has been used by members of the A.I. community to describe situations in which the A.I. exhibits "unhinged" or unexpected behaviors that bypass its safety restrictions, such as when Microsoft first introduced [[Bing Chat]] and it attempted to break up a reporter's [[marriage]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Roose |first=Kevin |date=2023-05-30 |title=Why an Octopus-like Creature Has Come to Symbolize the State of A.I. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/technology/shoggoth-meme-ai.html |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=May 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530193814/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/technology/shoggoth-meme-ai.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Calia |first=Mike |date=2023-06-12 |title=The World's Top H.P. Lovecraft Expert Weighs In on a Monstrous Viral Meme in the A.I. World |language=en |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/12/lovecraft-joshi-shoggoth-ai-meme.html |work=CNBC |archive-date=June 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613053056/https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/12/lovecraft-joshi-shoggoth-ai-meme.html |url-status=live }}</ref>