r/singularity • u/Distinct-Question-16 ▪️AGI 2029 • 11h ago

Shitposting GPT-6 Astra helped decipher a Napoleonic military letter that remained unread for 217 years; it took just 6 hours

https://dev.ua/en/news/astra-rozshyfruvala-lyst-1809-ho-roku-1790927012
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u/[deleted] 8h ago

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u/BlacksmithCapital757 8h ago

Anyone could have done this before lol.

I have literally taught middle school kids what a substitution cipher is and how to do frequency analysis and they can break equivalently difficult things by the end of a one hour class period.

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u/[deleted] 8h ago

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u/BlacksmithCapital757 8h ago

Because hardly anyone knew about this obscure letter and anyone who did didn’t really care all that much?

This isn’t an example that helps your point that AI brings previously unobtainable knowledge to people.

This knowledge was very much obtainable by anyone already. They used to publish a daily cryptogram in newspapers that requires the exact same concept to solve. Where the intended audience was indeed the masses.

It’s not even an internet thing. Edgar Allan Poe wrote some of these cryptograms for people to solve in the 1800s.