Will AI crack the cryptogram?

A BBC article makes me wonder whether AI will one day crack the cryptogram of La Buse. The BBC article is mainly about the Borg cipher, a 408-page-long manuscript sitting in the Vatican, which has remained unread for more than 400 years (see image). It is mostly incomprehensible – coded using 34 obscure symbols with a few Roman letters and a front page written in Arabic. But with the help of machine learning – a form of artificial intelligence – researchers were able to unravel the code. They discovered the text was filled with thousands of bizarre treatments such as drinking several glasses of high-quality red wine or fermenting a nutmeg in some dough to combat dysentery.

I was fascinated to read that the Borg cipher contains "thousands of bizarre treatments" because my conclusion regarding the La Buse cryptogram is that it also consists of a list of bizarre treatments. The interpretation of the Borg cipher lends credence to my interpretation of the La Buse cryptogram, in my opinion.

Furthermore... if you skip through the decoded text of the Borg cipher you will find that the style is similar to my interpretation of the La Buse cryptogram. In my interpretation certain substances are used to make ointments and preparations, mentioning words like sugar, sulphur, wine, honey and so on. Amazingly, those words and many other key words, appear also in the Borg text. In this list I present key words from my interpretation and how many times they appear in the Borg text. Every word appears at least once (but it's true it's a long text): sugar (25), orange (1), sulphur (40), dog (4), pigeon (1), olive oil (7), ointment (58), wine (100!), honey (27), scabies (2).

Even the phrase 'dog excrement' appears in the Borg text, and it's a key ingredient in one of the La Buse 'cures'! And the Borg text says it should be dry, just as La Buse wrote. In the Borg text it is suggested as a cure for human colic pains (if wolf excrement is not available): "Take dog excrement; note that one should take the white part of the excrements, since the black are not good, and that you furthermore should dry it, and reduce it to a powder; and of this powder you should give the amount by weight of a ducat, in good wine, as a drink to the patient."

I believe that La Buse wrote the cryptogram as a kind of joke to lead on a wild goose chase the crowd who had turned up to see him being hanged. I certainly don't believe that La Buse would have wanted to reward the blood-thirsty crowd, hungry to see him suffer, by giving them directions to his treasure!

I wouldn't be at all surprised if AI gives a plausible interpretation of the La Buse cryptogram sooner rather than later, and I wouldn't be surprised if the AI interpretation is similar to mine. I

AI is progressing fast of course. For example, it was only in 2025 that it became possible to use AI to generate watchable movies, and I was one of the first to experiment with that. Check out my eight minute Pythonesque movie The Quest featuring members of my family and ... a cryptogram.

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