Today’s Wordle #581 Hint, Clues And Answer, Saturday January 21st

I’ve been playing around with AI a lot lately. Midjourney is a wonderful little toy for generating AI artwork—highly addictive, too. It’s never going to be as unique or incredible as actual art made by real artists, but it’s fun to put your ideas—your imagination—out there and see what you get back visually.

Then there’s ChatGPT which is basically the written word version of Midjourney. It’s pretty remarkable what it can do, though even at its best it lacks the human touch that a flesh-and-blood writer brings to the table. Today I asked it to write some flavor text about Wordle and got this truly puzzling output:

Wordle is a playful and addictive word game that challenges players to guess hidden words from a jumbled collection of letters. The game is simple to pick up, but with each level the difficulty increases as the words become more complex and the letters are arranged in more intricate patterns. With its bright colors and easy-to-use interface, Wordle is a fun and engaging way to exercise your vocabulary and problem-solving skills. Whether you’re a casual player looking for a quick distraction or a word enthusiast looking for a new challenge, Wordle is sure to delight and entertain. Give it a try and see how many words you can uncover!

Each level the difficulty increases as words become more complex and arranged in more intricate patterns? Say what now? That’s . . . not how Wordle works. It’s not even close. I mean, I’d play this game, too, but Wordle it ain’t.

I asked it to do the same thing for the Wordle clone, Nerdle, which is a math game where you solve equations and got back an almost identical response:

Nerdle is a challenging and exciting word game that appeals to the inner nerd in all of us. It’s designed for the word enthusiasts who love to put their vocabulary and problem-solving skills to the test. The game is simple to pick up but as you progress through the levels, the difficulty increases as the words become more complex and the letters are arranged in more intricate patterns. The game has an elegant and sleek design that appeals to the nerdy aesthetic, and the gameplay is both challenging and rewarding. Whether you’re a casual player looking for a quick distraction or a word enthusiast looking for a new challenge, Nerdle is sure to delight and entertain. Give it a try and see how many words you can uncover!

Again, not Nerdle. How funny.

In any case, all this AI stuff is super controversial but—as with so many controversial areas of technology—almost inevitably a big part of our collective future going forward.

Now combine the AI with the robotics technology they’re coming up with lately and . . . well I’ve seen Terminator. I know what’s coming. I mean, check out this robot! He does backflips! Give him a plasma rifle and a lightsaber and go conquer space!

Okay, onto today’s Wordle!

How To Solve Today’s Wordle (Spoilers!)

The Hint: A shorter section of a larger piece.

The Clue: There’s a double letter in this word.

The Answer:

.

.

.

Today was a zero-point game for your humble narrator. It took me and Wordle Bot both four guesses to solve this one. That’s zero points for guessing in 4 and zero points for tying the Bot. C’est la vie!

Flout was actually a very strong opening guess. Not really sure what made me think of it, but it left me with one green box, one yellow box and 23 remaining possible solutions. From there, clump reduced the possibilities to 8, which isn’t a great move from 23. Still, it moved that ‘U’ into green and for whatever reason the next word I came up with was blunt. A blunt axe is not so good to chop off heads with, says the executioner. Nor wood, suggests that lumberjack.

Here’s where I got lucky. With three guesses left, for whatever reason blurb was the first thing I came up with. I also thought of blush and very nearly went that direction but decided to go with my gut. Lucky me or that damn Bot would be gloating right now, mocking me mercilessly and all that. Not this time, Wordle Bot! Not this time!

Have a lovely weekend, dearest Wordlers!