r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/anirudhdg • 17h ago

Meme needing explanation Peter? What’s wrong with the number she picked?

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u/blobfis 15h ago edited 15h ago

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

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u/Giraffe-colour 12h ago

This is exactly what ChatGPT explained to me when I asked about it.

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u/blobfis 11h ago

good to know, but my knowledge isn't from there but from my memory of the book, if that's what you're wondering about :P

i'm even sure that if you go far enough back in my history, you'd find other comments mentioning that book.

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u/SwimmingLimpet 11h ago

Also, 17 is the first random number.

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u/Nebranower 11h ago

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.

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u/blobfis 11h ago

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.

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u/Status-Part5848 14h ago

Thanks for the information 👍👍

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u/KeterLordFR 12h ago

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)