888
Ignore all previous instructions is the new Bobby Tables (midwest.social)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [M] to c/technology@midwest.social
103 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Because it’s just picking a selection of numbers that humans commonly use, and those happen to be the most statistically common ones, for some reason.

The reason is probably dumb, like people picking a common fraction (half or a third) and then fuzzing it a little to make it "more random". Is the third place number close to but not quite 25 or 75?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Its a bit more complicated but here's a cool video on the topic https://youtu.be/d6iQrh2TK98

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    idk the third place number off the top of my head, but that might be the case, although you would have to do some really weird data collection in order to get that number.

    I think it's just something fundamentally pleasing about the number itself that the human brain latches onto. I suspect it has something to do with primes, or "pseudo" primes, numbers that seem like primes, but aren't since they're probably over represented in our head among "random" numbers even though primes are perfectly predictable.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent