{"slug": "ask-hn-why-17", "title": "Ask HN: Why 17?", "summary": "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.", "body_md": "| [Guidelines](newsguidelines.html) \\|[FAQ](newsfaq.html) \\|[Lists](lists) \\|[API](https://github.com/HackerNews/API) \\|[Security](security.html) \\|[Legal](https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/) \\|[Apply to YC](https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/) \\|[Contact](mailto:hn@ycombinator.com) | \n\n|  | **[Hacker News](news)**[new](newest) \\|[past](front) \\|[comments](newcomments) \\|[ask](ask) \\|[show](show) \\|[jobs](jobs) \\|[submit](submit) | [login](login?goto=item%3Fid%3D49713156) | \n\n|  |  | [Ask HN: Why 17?](item?id=49713156) | \n|  |  | 3 points by [tonyvince7](user?id=tonyvince7)[18 minutes ago](item?id=49713156) \\|[hide](hide?id=49713156&goto=item%3Fid%3D49713156) \\|[past](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Ask%20HN%3A%20Why%2017%3F&type=story&dateRange=all&sort=byDate&storyText=false&prefix&page=0) \\|[favorite](fave?id=49713156&auth=c7ba3b3b674239dcb267c1b02ff4b28d0c7b432f) \\|[1 comment](item?id=49713156) | \n|  |  | If I ask an LLM to pick a number between 1 and 30, it always picks 17. Tried with multiple models. Why 17? |", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-why-17", "canonical_source": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49713156", "published_at": "2026-09-15 14:33:15+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-15 14:53:41.299402+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["large-language-models", "artificial-intelligence", "natural-language-processing"], "entities": ["Hacker News", "tonyvince7"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-why-17", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-why-17.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-why-17.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-why-17.jsonld"}}