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Technology

AI that cracked ancient secret code could help robot translation

By Timothy Revell

22 January 2018

Library

The algorithm needs lots of words

plainpicture/Mira/Frank Chmura

Secret code or foreign language? For machines, it might not matter. Without any prior knowledge, artificial intelligence algorithms have cracked two classic forms of encryption: the Caesar cipher and Vigenère cipher. As translating languages is similar to decoding a cipher, the approach may improve translation software.

To break the ciphers, and colleagues at the University of Toronto and Google used a type of algorithm called a generative adversarial network. The GAN started with no knowledge of ciphers or language, but by analysing thousands of English sentences and lines…

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