4 ms·
Claude, at least 4.5, not checked recently, has/had an obsession with the number 47 (or numbers containing 47). Ask it to pick a random time or number, or write
by vidarh 6mo ago
Claude, at least 4.5, not checked recently, has/had an obsession with the number 47 (or numbers containing 47). Ask it to pick a random time or number, or write prose containing numbers, and the bias was crazy.
Also "something shifted" or "cracked".
- dhosek 6mo agoHumans tend to be biased towards 47 as well. It’s almost halfway between 1 and 100 and prime so you’ll find people picking it when they have to choose a random number. Then there’s the whole Pomona College thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_(number) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_(number)
- vidarh 6mo agoThe whole blue 7 thing [1] and variations is very fascinating, but we don't tend to repeatedly pick the same number in the same exact context, though. That's what made this stand out to me - I had a document where Claude had picked 47 for "random" things dozens of times. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93seven_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93seven_phenomenon I experienced this even second hand when a coworker excitedly told of an encounter with a cold reader, and I knew the answer would be blue 7 before he told me what his guess was. Just his recap of the conversation was enough.
- flawn 6mo agoI am biased towards 67
- wmf 6mo agoMaybe Claude is just a fan of Alias.
- IAmGraydon 6mo agoI just asked GPT 5.5 Thinking to choose any random 2 digit number. The result was indeed 47. Interesting.
- ddtaylor 6mo agoGemini gave 42