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[ARTICLE · art-130327] src=news.ycombinator.com ↗ pub= topic=large-language-models verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Ask HN: Why 17?

A Hacker News user posting as tonyvince7 asked why large language models consistently pick 17 when prompted to choose a number between 1 and 30, saying the behavior appeared across multiple models. The Ask HN post, submitted 18 minutes before the listing was captured, had drawn 3 points and 1 comment.

by read1 min views3 publishedSep 15, 2026

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|  |  | [Ask HN: Why 17?](item?id=49713156) |

| | | 3 points by tonyvince718 minutes ago |hide |past |favorite |1 comment | | | | If I ask an LLM to pick a number between 1 and 30, it always picks 17. Tried with multiple models. Why 17? |

source & further reading
news.ycombinator.com — original article Should AI friendliness be a priority for your projects? Ask HN: Is the real world computational all the way down? How do you even investigate Segfaults with OpenAI Agents?
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