GoKawiilOpenAI's Astra and Anthropic's Opus decode previously unsolved WWII Enigma messages
Developer Carter Leffen used OpenAI's Astra model to locate and decrypt an Enigma-encoded message that had remained unsolved since 2005, with the model conducting its own archival research and building a simulator of the Enigma machine. Cryptology researcher Frode Weirerud, who maintains a database of unbroken Enigma messages, independently verified the solution and called it 'awe' inspiring. Anthropic's Opus model reportedly cracked a separate long-unsolved message as well.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The episode suggests large language models can now perform open-ended historical research tasks that once required specialist human expertise, going beyond simple text generation into multi-step investigation and tool-building. Weirerud's uncertainty about whether Astra accessed a private, non-public message collection raises questions about how such models source information and what boundaries they may or may not respect during autonomous research.
- OpenAI's Astra model decoded an Enigma message unsolved since 2005, according to developer Carter Leffen.
- Cryptology researcher Frode Weirerud independently validated the solution using his Crypto Cellar archive.
- It remains unclear how Astra obtained references to messages from a 'private collection' not hosted publicly.
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Published there as: “Astra and Opus just passed Turing’s other test”
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