Overview

• The Shoggoth is a popular visual metaphor used in artificial intelligence to represent the complex inner workings of language models.
• The metaphor originated from a science fiction story and has spread widely in the A.I. community.
• The Shoggoth symbolizes how A.I. processes seem to defy human logic and understanding.
• The Shoggoth reinforces the notion that what's happening in A.I. today feels more like an act of summoning than a software development process.
• The Shoggoth has come to represent anxieties researchers and engineers have about the tools they are building.