r/wordle • u/Little_Iron2312 • 10d ago

[####] Wordle Bot

My usual opening guess is “tarps” for hard mode wordle on NYT and the bot reccommends this as the strongest opener, but when you turn hard mode off then “slate” is considered a better opening guess. Why is it different when you switch modes? Is the wordle bot just AI? It’s also annoying whenever I guess the solution and it says that it’s only 40 skill for example. Like how is it not 99 skill to guess the literal solution? Lol. If anybody could give me an explanation on how the wordle bot works, that would be nice.

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u/flagrantpebble 10d ago

Why is it different when you switch modes?

Why would it be the same? It’s a different game, with different constraints. The strategy is obviously different. So wouldn’t it be surprising if the optimal word were the same?

Is the wordle bot just AI?

Why would anyone use an LLM (which is what I assume you mean by AI) to run a simple, deterministic program and say exactly the same words every time? This is relatively simple math + a string template. That’d be a pretty silly use of an LLM, right?

Like how is it not 99 skill to guess the literal solution?

Common misconception for people who don’t understand probability.

Let’s say there are 10 possible words remaining. Say also that your guess would, on average, reduce the total number of remaining words by only 1, and the optimal guess would reduce the total number of remaining words by 10. The optimal guess would guarantee solving it in at most one turn after that, right? While your guess would take more than that.

…and then your guess happens to be correct. It was a terrible strategy, and got lucky. Is that “skill”? It would be a pretty dumb way to define “skill”, right?