The MIT Mystery Hunt is an annual puzzle hunt that takes place in January. Historically, there have been no restrictions on the use of technology for solving puzzles.
Some hypotheticals and how I would resolve each of them:
The 2026 Mystery Hunt had a ban on using generative AI for submission tasks. Since this is not a restriction on solving puzzles themselves, a similar rule in 2027 would still resolve to NO.
The 2026 Galactic Puzzle Hunt has this rule: "You may not ask an LLM or other generative AI to solve a puzzle or a significant part of one." If instituted in the 2027 Mystery Hunt that would definitely lead to YES resolution.
If only /some/ LLMs are banned I would use my best discretion. Key factors I would look to are whether the LLMs are banned because they are too powerful (probably YES resolution) vs whether they are banned for some other reason (for example, if using an LLM or similar system resulted in leaking puzzle content to other teams and they were banned for that reason, that wouldn't really constitute a YES resolution in my view).
1,000@derikk I added some hypotheticals in the description. Feel free to present more hypotheticals and I will answer them. I don't particularly believe in trying to spell out every possibility in advance as I've found that it's a little too restrictive / unimaginative about the future. I'm going more for a "spirit of the question" resolution.