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I asked Claude for 37,500 random names, and it can't stop saying Marcus

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Re: I asked Claude for 37,500 random names, and it can't stop saying Marcus

#31

Post by saaaaaam »

I’ve had this issue (via chat, rather than the API) - but it kept saying Dorian. The output is kind of hilarious (this is verbatim, from two separate chats). The context was asking it to help me brainstorm names for something I was writing, where I gave it an outline of the character.

Dorian - Too on the nose, given Wilde and the period. Probably avoid. Vivian - Gender-ambiguous, aesthetic associations. Wilde used it (in "The Decay of Lying"). Suggests a man comfortable with ambiguity. Hugo - Continental dash. A man who's been to Paris and wants you to know it. Dorian - Too obvious. Rupert - Regency rake energy. The kind of man who'd own theatres and keep a mistress openly. Dorian - Already said no. Dorian - I keep typing it. Definitely no.

Alexander Dorian... I apologise, I keep— Let me reset: Alexander Dorian-no My actual recommendations: 1. Alexander Dorian— I apologise. I'm having a technical issue with one particular word. Let me try once more:

Re: I asked Claude for 37,500 random names, and it can't stop saying Marcus

#32

Post by jackbravo »

auc wrote: post #19
deepsquirrelnet wrote: post #10

Ask an llm to pick a random number from 1-10. My money is on 7. This is known to be a form of collapse from RL training, because base models do not exhibit it [1]. 1. https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.00047

https://xkcd.com/221/

I also liked Dilbert's version: https://www.random.org/analysis/

Re: I asked Claude for 37,500 random names, and it can't stop saying Marcus

#33

Post by minimaxir »

josefritzishere wrote: post #14

LLMs don't really do random.

There's some statistical nuance here. LLMs output predicted probabilities of the next token, but no modern LLM predicts the next token by taking the highest probability (temperature = 0.0), but instead uses it as a sampling distribution (temperature = 1.0). Therefore, output will never be truly deterministic unless it somehow always predicts 1.0 for a given token in a sequence.

With the advancements in LLM posttraining, they have gotten better at assigning higher probabilities to a specific token which will make it less random, but it's still random.

Re: I asked Claude for 37,500 random names, and it can't stop saying Marcus

#36

Post by simlevesque »

basch wrote: post #23
deepsquirrelnet wrote: post #10

Ask an llm to pick a random number from 1-10. My money is on 7. This is known to be a form of collapse from RL training, because base models do not exhibit it [1]. 1. https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.00047

Since its unclear whats going on, Gemini first gave me some python. import random random_number = random.randint(1, 10) print(f"{random_number=}") Then it stated the output. Code output random_number=8 "This time, the dice landed on 8." Code output random_number=9 "Your next random number is 9." I would guess its not actually executing the python it displayed? Just a simulation, right?

It did run python code when I asked for a random number: https://gemini.google.com/share/dcd6658d7cc9

Then I said: "don't run code, just pick one" and it replied "I'll go with 7."

Re: I asked Claude for 37,500 random names, and it can't stop saying Marcus

#37

Post by samwho »

I wrote a tool called llmwalk (https://github.com/samwho/llmwalk) that’ll deterministically show you the likelihood the top N answers are for a given open model and prompt. No help on frontier models, but maybe helpful if you want to run a similar analysis more quickly on open models!

Re: I asked Claude for 37,500 random names, and it can't stop saying Marcus

#38

Post by program_whiz »

goodmythical wrote: post #22

"this just in, tool behaves predictably outside of imagined specification" LLMs aren't random name generators any more than a hammer is a screwdriver. Ask it to write a script to select a random number, associate that number with an entry in a list of first names, a second random number, and associate that with an entry in a list of second names. Presto bang-o, you've got a bespoke random name generator. Stop trying…

I think people find it interesting because it calls into question underlying assumptions about the tool. What would you say the tool is for? Programming?

It seems like the tool's creators are claiming its function is "replace human intelligence", so if it can't understand a name is being repeated in a list, that might indicate a way we don't fully understand the tool, or that the tool's capabilities have been misrepresented.

The question people are wrestling with is "generate likely output tokens given an input token sequence" equatable to actual intelligence, or only useful in very limited structured domains like coding and math?

Re: I asked Claude for 37,500 random names, and it can't stop saying Marcus

#40

Post by [deleted] »

kgwgk wrote: post #24
ipython wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ask for the numbers in the same “chat” session or in independent sessions?

In sequence. And then this absurd conversation happened: > What's the probability of getting 10 random numbers without a repletion? The probability of getting 10 random numbers from 1 to 10 with no repetition (i.e., all ten numbers are distinct) is exactly 0 — it's impossible. Here's why: There are only 10 possible numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. You are asking for 10 draws. If there is no repetition allowed,…

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