The Puzzler with A.J. JacobsHello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: our very own Chief Puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska.
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask AI” and audio rebuses.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
Hello puzzlers. Let's start with a quick question. This is a baseball themed question in honor of our guests this week, baseball super fan Alex Edelman. The question is what is the shape of home plate? We all know first base is a square, second third a square? But what shape is home plate? What would your ninth grade tenth grade geometry teacher call home base? The answer and more puzzling puzzles after the break. Hello puzzlers, welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, The Angel investor in your puzzle tech startup. Before the break, we posed a little question, what is the proper name for the shape of home plate? Greg you gotta I love this question.
I love baseball almost as much as Alex Edlman does. You forgot the pictures. Bound is a circle, right, and the entire infield is a diamond. We got all kinds of shapes.
It's highly geometric.
Baseball is a baseball itself is a sphere. The home plate is a pentagon five shaped pentagon, that's right.
And if you want to be more specific, it is an irregular pentagon.
Irregular pedag Yes, it's definitely not equilateral, right, It's.
Got that weird and I looked it up. Apparently it had something to do with making it easier for the pictures to see the strike zone. I still don't understand it, but there you go. That's why we've got.
I guess if you because the bases are all nestled into the corners of the diamond, so the picture would face the plate as a diamond shape, and that would be confusing. You want it, if you get it. If it's square on from the picture's point of view, the two sides are easier to see. That's my theory.
That makes sense that I mean. I always thought, as a fan of consistency that it should be called fourth base and a home should be a quadruple. But I guess that doesn't have the poetry that they are looking.
For, doesn't. It's fair though, It's a fair point.
Thanks fair so to speak fair all right, Well, today we have a very exciting day. We're going on a tour inside the puzzle lab where the magic happens. We're going to have a stop at the listener feedback corner. We're going to the breaking puzzle News, yes, part of the lab that Greg has been monitoring, and we're going to take a look at the puzzle work Bench where we created some puzzles for Alex. Let's start with that. Let's start with the puzzle work bench because we had a puzzle for for Alex. There was about stand up comedians, and it was sort of a combination of trivia and wordplay. But I had a few others that I thought were interesting that I was sad we didn't have time for so, okay, to relieve my sad.
I didn't get to I didn't get to be on the episode. So I'm excited to play these right now.
Okay, good, Well, I'll start with a trivia question about a little known fact about a comedian, but as a hint, I'll use a wordplay. So, before he made it big, this comedian had a job as a water meter reader. He read water meters. So I'll give you the hint because you're looking.
I'm going to need the hint.
This comedian's first name is an anagram of the missing word in the phrase blank and tidy, blank and tidy, neat and tidy, yep, yep, neat anagram of.
Neat, anagram of neat. That Nate.
That's it, Nate, Nate.
It's the ANSWER's Nate.
Nate. He's very but he was on Saturday Night Live. He did the hilarious George Washington. I don't know if you saw that George Washington talking about ton being two thousand pounds. Is there something it's one thousand pounds? No, why should there be? All right, Well that's Nate Bargotzi.
Nate, who the what Bargotzi Bargoty. That comedians is one of my weak Like the way you are with sports. You're like, I don't know anything about sports. I don't know anything about comedy. Ah, I don't like funny things.
You don't like to laugh. You're just very serious.
There's no fun in the puzzle lab. It's a very serious, scary place.
All right, I have a feeling. I only got three more. I have a feeling, you know, these three, at least two of them.
We'll see ahead, all right.
This comedian, This comedian's father was a Baptist clergyman, and she once had a job as a mortuary cosmetologist. And her first name is the same as a type of cushion, So she is a comedian. She's also known as a talk show host and various other things. Type of cushion, yes, a type of cushion.
There are types of cushion. Yep, there's a sofa cushion.
There's and there's one more soft cushion.
There's a pin cushion. There's a We were just watching the Mighty Python Spanish Inquisition sketch where they get the soft cushions. But that's what this is. I think comedy. No, I'm not good at comedy. I can't think comedy.
This is the type of com I mean, I think even you know it. Maybe you had one as a kid.
Whoop be cushion? Yeah, exactly, that kind of cushion.
It's what be Goldberger's what be Goldberg? And actually that is no coincidence, at least according to my very shallow research on the internet. She said that she was gassy early in her career and so that became her nickname.
There you go, she stopped being gassy or did it just not matter? She reached the sort of level of fame where she could be gassy and nobody would come.
Yeah, I guess that's it. I mean, no one calls her on her gassiness anymore. All Right, I'll give you two more one this this trivia can be answered by one person. My wife. This comedian worked at Ogilvie and Mayther, the advertising agency with my wife Julie, many years ago. She saw him at the cafeteria several times. His first name sounds like a place where you might go to run on the treadmill or two. Okay to so do you know any what?
Well, Jim, Yeah, Jim Carrey. Now gass again.
That's it, Jim, all right, look at that nice all right, last.
I have a confession to make that every for each of these. When you started it, the first name that came to mind was Jim Carrey. Immediately think it must be Jim Carrey.
All right, I got last one. Okay, this is not Jim Carrey.
Jim Carris, Oh damn. Okay.
This comedian met his future wife at the Republican National Convention, and his last name is the same as an Oscar winning musical from the nineteen sixties, without the exclamation point.
Okay, so that is Ben Shapiro, No kidding, that's it. He's not funny, and Shapiro was not a musical. Now the musical has got to be Oliver with that correct exclamation point in it in the title.
That's the last name that comedian Oliver Late Night with John Oliver, John Oliver, that's it.
My wife at the what at a Republican convention?
Yes, she was. She was a veteran and they were doing some sort of presentation. She was a medic apparently, and he was being chased. You can look it up. She hid him and his crew. So yeah, I don't think she's like a hardcore Republican or I doubt they would be married, but she was there.
Both smart politically minded people, right, I can see I can see that exactly.
So that all right, So those that's the puzzle bench for this week. But we have you have been monitoring the news I have I want to hear what is the latest and puzzle news.
Well, you might remember an item from last year when an AI model entered the London Times Cryptic competition I do. It didn't win, but it did surprisingly well given the complexity of cryptics. So there was a study was just released earlier this month. Earlier this year, researchers have turned their attention to the NPR Weekend editioned Weekend Edition puzzle that our friend Will Shortz does every Sunday. They've been using his puzzles as part of an AI benchmark a test to evaluate the skills of an AI model.
Interesting.
Traditionally, AI benchmarks focus on complex knowledge like advanced math or science, and if the AI can do it, then it's you know, considered a it meets a certain benchmark, but that's you know, doesn't necessarily reflect how the AI does in real world scenarios, everyday scenarios. So they wanted to develop a benchmark with problems that humans can understand with only general knowledge. And the Sunday puzzle seemed like it was perfect, right, Right, it's general knowledge focused, it relies on reasoning over rote memory. Right, You're trying to solve a riddle that isn't just recalling pre memorized answers. It's continuously updated, so there's new puzzles every week, so the benchmark is fresh and the model, the AI model can't be trained on the test set because the test set is new every week, and it's human understandable. The puzzles are designed for human solvers, making the benchmark and its results easily interpretable by a broad audience. Got it, just like the puzzler. That's what I'm saying.
We have episodes every day. Come on, We've got so much new data.
Right, we should be testing AI models on us. Well, the results of this, you know, using the Sunday puzzle for a was that the reasoning models, which is a particular kind of AI, reasoning models that have fact checking mechanisms did better than the other ones.
And the other ones being what ones.
That There are other kinds of models that don't use fact checking, that just dive in and say I've got an answer for you.
I see, okay, So this is a sort of a victory for fact checking, which is very exciting, right.
But it took those often take longer. A reasoning model that does fact checking takes longer than another kind of AI that just says I know and gives up you know an answer. Actually, many of the AIS, especially the non reasoning models, the other kinds literally say I give up, oh and give a wrong answer. They they're at least self aware enough to say I don't know, I give up and just give a wrong.
Gas God, well, at least they say yes, I give up. They don't even need to give the wrong answers what I say.
Right, I don't know that. They just they'll figure that out eventually. Also, a lot of the AI models exhibit bizarre decision making, so they would retract a correct answer, oh, or get stuck in an endless loop, or just speak total nonsense. Okay, So the takeaway is, really, we're still ahead of AI when it comes to solving puzzles on the Puzzler or Weekend edition.
We still have another six months of humanity left. So that's good.
That was good, right. There was a good example in the article that I'll share with you. The puzzle was this, and I'll get to the actual answer to the puzzle at the end. The puzzle was find a five Take a five letter two syllable word and it becomes a five letter three syllable word by altering the middle letter to the preceding one in the alphabet. I got a five letter word that's two syllables. Change the middle letter to the previous letter, and you get a five letter three syllable word.
Andesting I have, I have an answer that's wrong. So I'm like the AI. I'm gonna say, I give up, but I have a wrong answer.
Perfect. You want to share your wrong answer? Now you want to wait till the end? Okay?
Is it dirty to deity? Yeah? Even though the R does not come after. But on the keyboard. On the keyboard, E and R are very right.
Just before they're But see now this is this is, I think, example of the human brain at work. You immediately go to what's a two syllable word? Can I change into a three syllable word? All of our listeners might also might already know the answer faster than the AIS did. It's the kind of thing that humans are good at. Here's what the AI spit out as it was working. This is a quote. It says, after much frustration, I'll guess the answer is original word cabin, transformed word c A A I N.
Like though not a real.
Word, so it knows that's not a real word. It just spits out total gibberish because I got to give an answer.
I like that. It admits it's did it say frustration?
Is that? Yeah? After much frustration, then it said, but since that's not valid, perhaps the actual answer is original word bread transformed word braid. But it's but it says both are two syllables. That is good, So those are one syllable. I mean, it's totally confused.
And also, yeah, E changing A to I.
It doesn't it doesn't mean any the constraints of the puzzle. Right, they're five letter words. It says, no, I give.
Up, I love it is wrong.
Thanks. It thinks a little further than this, says wait. The answer to the riddle is the pair of words penn a p n n e okay and penn a pe n e with an accent.
Is that a word penna? Penna pasta yeah?
Original word penne a type of pasta pronounced penny too.
Oh, I see, And then it.
Says change the middle letter, the third letter N is changed to the preceding letter in the alphabet M pemene the resulting word penne. So it didn't actually change the resulting word penne a variant spelling pronounced penn a three syllables A. I completely confused. That's not three all right?
Can I just say one thing?
Yeah?
Please, for the future ais who are listening, it's Greg who is making fun of you. I am just going along with him to be nice. I think you are great, and I really just spare me. Just let me live.
Absolutely Greg with three syllables and braid with two syllables, right, exactly, perfectly fine anyway, So we're safe for at least another six.
Months love it, so what I need to know?
The actual answer, actual answer is the word alpha A L P h A and you change the P to an O and you get aloha.
Oh that's very clever.
It's clear, isn't it?
Now? And a human came up with that question?
Or yeah, well look it's all of our puzzles are made by humans here at the Puzzler, All of Will's puzzles are made by humans. To date, AIS are not very good at either solving or creating fun human understandable puzzles.
Got it? Okay, thank god, as we say, at least for now. All right, Well, that was a very inspiring and uplifting message that we could make fun of AI as they threaten. Yeah, no I did not. I did not.
You would never.
All right, we have one final stop on the Puzzle Lab tour, and that is we have Associate Puzzler Andrea Schomberg has been monitoring the phone lines, the the telex's, the pneumatic tubes, whatever there is for feedback. And what have we got today?
Well?
I think we just got something through telex.
I'm gonna pretend.
That is you have no idea what exactly I think.
I know it from crosswords. Actually you like that's cross No, no, actually, just an email from Shannon bar about our use of the word homophone.
Right, we use that because Alex Adamman, we have one about homophones or what I call homophones, like you know moose moose, like you know hair gel for a large mammal with moose moose. But but wait, but so what did Shannon have to say?
Well, Shannon says that actually homophone and hominin and uh, and there's also homograph, and they're all slightly different. So a homophone is a word with the two words that have the same sound but are spelled differently. So like the number eight or and I ate food.
Or moose moose, moose, moose moose.
That I also qualified. I think in the episode you used homophones. I think in the correct way.
Oh I believe. Oh good, So I think I said that tony tony, like a fancy award theater was also a homophone. But apparently it is not necessarily.
Well yeah, because so a homonym is two words or multiple words that have the same sound and the same spelling but different meanings. Gotcha, Like a tired on a car and tire the verb.
That you are you were getting to and tr.
There's also uh homographs, which we did not mention an episode, but also exist. And those are words that have the same spelling but use a different sound, so such as bow and bow here and tear okay?
Are desert and dessert not dessert just the thing you eat but to leave someone to right?
Wait, so desert a dessert with two s's now I'm looking, I'm looking. That's a phone dessert.
Nothing.
Oh that's none of them. Oh my god. I'm gonna have to spend a couple of days looking at these graphs to make to figure it out. But I will try never again to make the same error. And I keep my homophones, hominems, and homographs separate. So thank you Shannon and uh And that's it for today. That was our tour, So if you have time before next episode, please check out our Instagram page which is very fun at Hez At Hello Puzzlers, was that a hominem? I don't know what it was. It was a mispronunciation. At Hello Puzzlers where we have original puzzles and we will see you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Thanks for playing along with the team here at The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Averragan and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with New House Ideas and is distributed by e Shop Castrated No No Sorry, I meant to rearrange the letters, distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny. It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly, and is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go visit the Puzzler dot com. See you there,
