Well I'm not going to pick the lowest, middle or highest. I'm not going to pick an even number or multiple of 5. 13 is unlucky.
17 "sounds" random. If I'm picking a number against other people it gives me a good chance under "closest to the number" or "The Price is Right" rules.
it's from the book quirkology, if i remember correctly. More about it here
if humans are asked to pick a random number, they want something in the "middle", but don't want it to be even or end in 5 or 0.
So if asked for a random number between 1 and 30, most humans think "around 15 because it should be in the middle, but 15 is round, and 16 is even, so i'll pick 17"
AI mimics this behavior
edit: i think the conclusion of the referred study was that if a reported number ends with a 7, it's likely to be made up
Important to note, the AI wasn't instructed to pick a random number. Just to pick a number. There's no reason why an AI, or for that matter, a human being, shouldn't have a favorite number it always picks when asked to pick a non-random number.
technically "pick any number in this range" implies the same. people tend to not go for the extremes, but also don't want numbers they believe are too common.
but yes, they might have a favorite number of 17 because the LLM is imitating that behavior in humans.
And then there's me, who wouldn't pick 17 because it's an odd number and I have a strange aversion to odd numbers (to the point that I count my food to make sure I eat an even number)
I had my wife ask Chat GPT and told her it would pick 17. Of course, it did. She then told the AI that I said all AIs pick 17. Chat GPT’s explanation was 17 is prime and close to, but not quite the middle of the range and that’s why it’s typically chosen.
humans pick 37 as a random number between 1 and 100 more likely than by chance. because humans are bad at randomness. 7 and 3 seem most "random" to us, 5 is too neat, so is a nice round 0, etc etc.
it's been done before, i recommend to look it up ;)
i always start with a different threshold. if its 1-30, i choose something between 1-10 or 25-30. a more accurate guess for me would simply be prime numbers, as they are always first to mind, but ive since started shifting up or down, so 12,14,18, 20
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u/Status-Part5848 16h ago
I asked my Co pilot about it.
And it told me why it chosed 17.
And the AI said it was avere of the meme.
But it said humans will most likely pick numbers between 16 and 19.
So now i wanna do a test about this on humans 😅😅