AI Needs a Human Touch

Can you solve this cipher? Could you do it with gen-AI? Maybe integrate OpenAI's ChatGPT 4, Google's Gemini or Anthropic Claude 3 to come to an answer?

I saw this puzzle this morning posted on Instagram and was instantly intrigued. I decided to explore it with ChatGPT to see if I could solve it. I want to share the entire conversation so you can see HOW it processed the information, and the steps required on my part to come to the answer.

Me

I have a puzzle that I would love your help solving. I have no more instructions than a single image that contains letters and numbers. Can you look at the puzzle and see if you can help me walk through the process of figuring it out?

ChatGPT

Absolutely, I'd be happy to help with your puzzle. Please upload the image, and we can start working through it together.

This is the puzzle

ChatGPT

Thanks for the image. At first glance, it appears we have a sequence of numbers from 1 to 26, which typically correspond to the letters of the English alphabet (A=1, B=2, ..., Z=26). There are some repeated numbers and they're out of order. Below the numbers, there is a sequence of letters which seem to be scrambled as well and there are dashes that suggest the formation of a word or phrase.

The "15" at the bottom might be indicating a particular significance to the number 15 in the puzzle. One possibility is that the numbers above correspond to the letters below, and we need to decipher the correct order or apply a certain rule that the number 15 could imply.

Let's start by trying to match the numbers with the corresponding letters and see if we can discern a pattern. For example, if we take "1" to correspond to "K" (the first letter in the sequence below), "2" to "I", and so on, we might begin to see a message emerge.

I'll map out the letters to the numbers according to their position in the sequence and we can check if that reveals any understandable pattern.

Mapping each number to its corresponding letter in the order they're given doesn't seem to form a coherent word or phrase. The result is "KILTVHUCDSMJWEGMBNPAGQOYZFXUR", which is not immediately recognizable as anything meaningful.

Since the straightforward mapping didn't work, we might consider other methods. The repetition of the number "15" could suggest a key or a shift in a cipher, or maybe the numbers are meant to be mapped in a different order.

One thing to note is the repetition of numbers 15 and 7. These might be spaces or special characters if we are looking at a phrase or sentence.

Let's consider the position of each letter in the alphabet and see if applying a shift of 15, as the number at the end suggests, might give us a more meaningful result. We will shift each letter 15 places down the alphabet and see what we get. If we go past 'Z', we will loop back around to 'A'.

Shifting each letter 15 places down the alphabet gives us "ZXAIKWJRSHBYL TVQCEPFDNOUMG". This still does not reveal a coherent phrase or word.

It's also possible that we need to apply a different kind of transformation. Since there's a pattern of numbers followed by a set of letters, this could be a substitution cipher where each number represents a letter in the alphabet, but the order given is not the order of the letters in the final message.

Another clue might be the dashes at the bottom of the image, which could indicate the structure of the message we are trying to decipher (such as word breaks). The message might also use the numbers to represent the position of each letter in a new message, but the repeated numbers and the "15" at the bottom suggest a rule that we haven't applied yet.

The puzzle might require a more complex approach, such as a two-step cipher where we would use the numbers to reorder the letters somehow and then possibly apply another transformation.

Without additional clues, it might be a process of trial and error to figure out the exact method needed to solve the puzzle. If there's any more context that could be provided or any additional patterns or rules that are known, that could be quite helpful in solving this.

Me

The only hint - "Hint: the answer is an the form of a phrase"

ChatGPT

With the hint that the answer is in the form of a phrase, the dashes likely represent the spaces between words in the phrase. The repeated numbers (like 15 and 7) could represent the same letter occurring more than once in the phrase, or they could be spaces or punctuation.

Given this new information, let's consider the numbers as indicating the order in which letters appear in the phrase. For example, "1" is the first letter of the phrase, "2" is the second letter, and so on. The repetition of numbers would thus mean that the corresponding letter appears each time that number is mentioned.

Let's map the numbers to letters again, this time considering the repeats and the pattern of the phrase indicated by the dashes.

It seems that there’s a discrepancy with the direct mapping approach. When trying to assign the letters to the numbers, there’s an inconsistency with the repetition of certain numbers and the corresponding letters. This suggests that a different method must be used.

If we treat the sequence of numbers not as a direct substitution but as indicating positions in the final phrase, we may need to rearrange the letters to fit the sequence. However, with the numbers out of order and repeating, it’s not a simple case of reordering the letters. Repeating numbers may indicate that a letter is used multiple times in the phrase.

Considering the dashes at the bottom of the puzzle, which likely represent word boundaries in the phrase, it's possible that each set of numbers corresponds to a word. For instance, the first dash is preceded by three numbers, suggesting that the first word is three letters long.

The number '15' is repeated four times, which could indicate that the corresponding letter appears multiple times in the phrase or represents spaces between words. Since we have three dashes, it's reasonable to assume there are three spaces (or word separators) in the phrase. If we take '15' to represent spaces, then we can infer the phrase structure based on the remaining numbers.

Let’s attempt to solve the puzzle using the assumption that '15' represents a space, and the rest of the numbers correspond to the order of letters in the phrase. We’ll map the numbers to the letters, treating '15' as a space and organizing the letters accordingly.

! Error Analyzing

It looks like there was a mistake in my approach. I inadvertently used a return statement outside of a function context while trying to generate an error message. Let me correct this and proceed with the rearrangement while treating the number '15' as a space. Let's try this again.

It seems we have a problem with the number-to-letter mapping because the same number is mapping to different letters, which shouldn't happen if each number consistently represents the same letter.

Let's reassess the puzzle. Since we're looking for a phrase and the numbers don't directly translate to the letters in a straightforward manner, it's possible that the sequence of numbers actually represents the order in which letters should be arranged to form words.

This would mean that, for example, all instances of the number 1 would correspond to the first letter of the phrase, and all instances of the number 2 would correspond to the second letter, and so on, with the number 15 representing a space or a repeated letter. However, there’s a conflict here because, according to the sequence, the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc., correspond to more than one letter, which is against the rules of a simple cipher.

Since we are looking for a phrase and we have the numbers 1 through 26 (which cover the entire alphabet) and some numbers are repeated, we might try a different approach. For example, the numbers could represent the order of the letters in the alphabet, and we have to find the correct sequence to form words.

The dashes at the bottom of the puzzle likely indicate the spaces between words. Since we have three dashes, we can assume there are three words in the phrase. The numbers could be telling us how to rearrange the alphabet letters to form these words.

Let's attempt to match each number with a letter in the scrambled alphabet sequence provided, with the understanding that repeated numbers are either spaces or repeating letters, and then see if we can form words that fit the pattern indicated by the dashes. We’ll ignore the conflict for now and simply map each number to its first corresponding letter in the sequence.

By mapping each number to its corresponding letter from the scrambled alphabet and considering that the number 15 might represent a space, the phrase we've assembled is "KILTVHUCDSMJWEGNPAQYZFXR", which still doesn't make sense.

Let's try a different approach. If we take the sequence of numbers to indicate the order of the letters, we should try to map them to form words that fit the pattern of the dashes. However, we're still facing an issue with the mapping because of the repeating numbers.

The puzzle is complex and without further instructions or clues, there might be multiple ways to interpret the numbers and letters. One possible method could be to use the number sequence to determine the order in which letters appear, using the number 15 as a placeholder for spaces or repeated letters.

For example, if we start by placing the letters in the order they appear under their corresponding numbers, we may end up with a sequence that we can then divide into words based on the dashes, interpreting repeated numbers as multiple occurrences of a letter or as spaces. However, this is not consistent with the repeats (like multiple 15s and 7s), and we still need to figure out how to deal with them.

Since we know there are three words in the phrase, the positions of the letters may need to be adjusted so that they form coherent words, possibly using a form of anagramming with the given letters.

We need to explore further possibilities. If the numbers are indeed a cipher that should reveal a phrase, there may be a key or additional step to deciphering it that we haven't yet discovered. If you have any additional context or insights into how the numbers and letters might relate, that could provide a crucial clue.

Me

No more clues. Let's explore each of the possible ways to interpret the numbers, letter and dashes.

ChatGPT

Given that the direct substitution and shifting methods haven't worked, let's explore some alternative interpretations of the puzzle.

1. Anagram Approach:Each number corresponds to a letter, but they are out of order.The goal is to rearrange the letters to form a coherent phrase.The dashes suggest the lengths of the words in the phrase.
2. Columnar Transposition:The numbers could represent a key for a columnar transposition cipher.We would write the letters out in columns corresponding to the numbers and then read the rows.
3. Index within the Scrambled Alphabet:Instead of mapping the numbers to the letters based on their sequence, each number could represent the index of a letter within the scrambled alphabet given below.
4. Repeating Numbers as Spaces or Punctuation:The repeating numbers (like 15 and 7) could represent spaces or punctuation marks that separate words in the phrase.
5. Repeating Numbers as the Same Letter:If the same number repeats, it could represent the same letter in the phrase.

Let's start with the Anagram Approach. We can try to use the numbers to rearrange the scrambled letters into a phrase. The numbers will give us the sequence of the letters, and the dashes give us a clue about the separation of words. Let's attempt to rearrange the letters to form a phrase, treating the repeating numbers as spaces or separators between words.

Using the anagram approach, rearranging the letters according to the sequence given by the numbers, we get "KILTVHUCDS JWE NPAQYZFXR". Here, the spaces have been placed where there were repeated numbers in the sequence, corresponding to potential spaces in the phrase. However, this still doesn't form a recognizable phrase.

Let's move on to the next possible method, Columnar Transposition. In this cipher, the letters are written out in columns according to a key sequence and then read off in rows to form the plaintext. The key for the transposition could be the sequence of numbers, but we don't have a clear key length or a perfect sequence from 1 to 26 since some numbers are repeated and some are missing. It's also not immediately clear how to deal with the numbers that are repeated more than twice or how the numbers correspond to columns.

The Index within the Scrambled Alphabet approach suggests that each number might indicate the position of a letter within a scrambled alphabet. But given the letters provided, we do not have a clear starting point to determine which letter in the scrambled sequence corresponds to which number.

The Repeating Numbers as Spaces or Punctuation and Repeating Numbers as the Same Letter approaches are challenging to apply without more clues. We can infer that there might be three spaces in the phrase based on the three dashes and that repeating numbers indicate where these spaces are. However, without further clues about the significance of the particular numbers that repeat, such as 15 and 7, it's difficult to draw a definitive conclusion.

Without additional clues or insight, the puzzle remains unsolved with the information and methods we've applied. This type of puzzle often has a specific key or trick to it that needs to be understood before it can be solved. If this is a known type of puzzle or cipher, or if there is a known context in which it was provided, that might hold the necessary clues to unlock its solution. If this is an entirely new creation, it may require a unique approach that hasn't been considered yet.

Me

What if you were to match the bottom letters up in sequence to the alphabet - so that ABCDEFG... were to be aligned with the letters presented in the sequence at the bottom. Such that: A = K, B = I, C = L, D=T, E=V - and so on. Then you were to match up the numbers above with this re-arranged alphabet. Would that produce anything?

This idea struck me when looking over the image. I noticed that every letter was represented in the section at the bottom - but out of sequence. So - que-ing them up to match made a simple cipher for the sequence of matching. Then the number at top should correspond to the sequence such that we could exchange the letter-for-letter to obtain the represented phrase!

ChatGPT

Certainly! If we take the sequence of letters at the bottom as a key to a substitution cipher where each letter of the alphabet has been replaced with another letter (A becomes K, B becomes I, C becomes L, etc.), then we can decode the numbers above by substituting them with the corresponding letters from the key.

Let's do the following steps:

1. Create a substitution key from the sequence of letters at the bottom.
2. Replace each number in the sequence above with the letter from our substitution key.

Let me map this out and decode the message for you.

The approach was to use the sequence of letters at the bottom as a direct substitution cipher key for the alphabet. However, decoding the numbers with this key gives us the same result as before: "KILTVHUCDSMJWEGMBNPAGQOYZFXUR". This is not a valid phrase or message.

It seems I’ve made a mistake in the application of your idea. I should map the alphabet to the new sequence and then decode the numbers above to the letters that correspond to their position in the alphabet. Let’s try that again.

Using the provided sequence to substitute for the alphabet, and then decoding the numbers to this new alphabet, we get the phrase: "SPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ JUDGE MY VOW."

This phrase is a well-known pangram, which is a sentence containing every letter of the alphabet at least once. It seems we've solved the puzzle!

So the answer -

SPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ JUDGE MY VOW.

This is a pangram (a fun sentence that uses every single letter of the English alphabet at least one time - and still makes sense.)

When working through this process - I noted the very methodical way that ChatGPT was moving through the possibilities. It hit multiple hurdles and came back - almost pleading like a child - for another hint. The speed with which it could run through possibilities was amazing (speed and amplification), but the IDEA is what leveraged a series of possibilities and produced the means to a solution. The Human Element is key.

Challenge -

1. Now that you know what a pangram is - see if you can have your favorite LLM produce a few!
2. Using a LLM, devise a creative puzzle and share it with others to try and solve in combination with their own LLM!
3. Don't forget how important the Human Element is.

Brian Sykes