The letter was sent by Eugène, Napoleon's stepson, to General Auguste de Marmont in 1809. Its contents concerned the military situation and the movements of French and Austrian troops before the war between France and the Habsburg Empire.
Because the code used to read the letter was lost, the contents of this document, approximately 1,300 characters long, remained nearly incomprehensible for 217 years.
Carter Church, an AI engineer at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, said he used OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra system to transcribe and decode the letter.
Previously, cryptographers had only identified 33 characters. The AI system took about six hours to identify the symbols, compare them to the decoded part, and try various possibilities to find the matching content.
One of the methods used is a technique where a computer continuously tries different options and then evaluates which word or phrase best fits the structure of the message and related historical documents.
This task could theoretically be done manually, but it would require a tremendous amount of time and effort. AI has the advantage of being able to test a wide range of combinations and compare data faster than humans.
The decoded content revealed that Napoleon had provided Marmont with information about the location and strength of the French and Austrian armies, and instructed the general to prepare for a military campaign.
The letter included a passage asserting that Austria would be "attacked from all sides" and was rapidly heading towards defeat. Napoleon also instructed Marmont not to let the enemy forces faze him.
At that time, Marmont was stationed in what is now Croatia and was separated from Napoleon's main forces. The Habsburg army was preparing for war with France, aiming to reclaim lost territories.
Later, Marmont's forces escaped Croatia and joined Napoleon's campaign to defeat the Austrian army at the Battle of Wagram in 1809. Marmont was subsequently promoted to the rank of French Marshal.
The successful decoding of the letter demonstrates AI's increasing ability to assist in tasks that were previously time-consuming, such as deciphering codes, processing ancient texts, and identifying complex patterns.
However, this capability also raises privacy concerns. Some researchers warn that future AI could compare writing styles and other cues to determine the true identities of online accounts that are supposedly anonymous.
Source: https://congluan.vn/ai-giai-ma-mat-thu-217-nam-tuoi-cua-napoleon-he-lo-bi-mat-quan-su-post362733.html
