Thread

1. jtrn · 1790087529 · focus · HN ↗

   The correct title: Researcher brakes one specific stubborn historic enigma message with good help from Astra.

   Stubborn for a long time because the message used a completely different key from the rest of that day's traffic. Everyone assumed it shared the daily key. The original transcription had errors. The left rotor turned over at letter 72, which is rare and breaks standard crib attacks.

   What is cool, if true, is that it was a 2 day collab between the Leffer and Astra. To me this shows the importance of human in the loop, was still all also showing how immensely power of llm tools. But I think it’s getting a bit silly how much anrticles ignores the driving force (the person) in breakthroughs like this.

   1. serbuvlad · 1790091726 · focus · HN ↗

      Even if this is true, we must avoid falling into the trap of Kasparov of betting on Centaur Chess.

      Just like with Kasparov's Centaur Chess, the idea of a 'human in the loop' is just a necessity due to current limitations.

      There will hopefully (?) come a time one day when human beings provide only ultimate value judgments, and everything else is done by machines. Or it may not.

      But I don't think betting your ego on the idea that you will be useful in the loop for very long is very wise.

      1. banannaise · 1790093549 · focus · HN ↗

         While this is a reasonable analogy, engines became better than humans in the late 1990s, and engines became better than centaurs in the early 2020s. Could AI-powered mathematics improve faster than the ~25 years it took for chess? The AI labs are certainly hoping it does, but that's far from a guarantee.

         1. myrmidon · 1790164146 · focus · HN ↗

            Might be a bad analogy, because early chess computers were purely algorithmic and worked despite their poor board state evaluation heuristics that humans used to be able to augment.

            Compare with go (boardgame): Centaur go was basically not ever a thing.

            Other applications behaved kinda similarly (AI Starcraft/Dota/...), where we had decent "human-like" heuristics from the get go and the Centaur concept could never really shine, much less for a decade or more.

            I'd also like to stress that past progress in this mainly happened for the love of the game, while the (economical) incentives to replace human office workers are... high.

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