Question about human-machine password exchange

[soldar]

I don't understand. If someone can hear the question and the answer then they know all three numbers. What's the point? I don't get it.

“the difference to 104, please”, to which you would reply “72” and the listener can deduce the original was 32 so why not just say 32?

I think OP means asymmetric encryption, which will not expose the password even when both question and answer are known. I struggled for a long time and still don't know how it works.

No. And you are mixing posts. That response of mine was not to the OP but to another scenario.

And I do know how asymmetric encryption works. I have been using PGP since it started over 20 years ago.