In the battle of wits between humans and machines, there’s one arena where homo sapiens still reign supreme: the cryptic crossword. A recent competition pitting top human solvers against an AI program named Ross highlighted the surprising complexity of these devious linguistic puzzles.
When Wordplay Meets AI
The annual Times Crossword Championship attracts the best cruciverbalists from around the UK. This year, they faced an unusual opponent: Ross, an AI represented by a coffee-drinking cartoon dog, embedded in the Crossword Genius app. While AI has bested humans at chess, Go, and Jeopardy!, could it match our puzzling prowess?
Clued In or Stumped?
Seasoned solvers like serial champ Mark Goodliffe whizzed through clues, pondering the next while still scribbling in the previous answer. Ross kept pace at first, quickly decoding wordplay like “MP ousted by Liberal, absolutely without authority (9)” to get ILLICITLY.
But other clues left the AI scratching its virtual head:
“Radical overhaul of motorsport’s image (9)”
The answer: FIREBRAND, cleverly parsing as F1 RE-BRAND
Puns and that “aha!” factor stump AI, which relies on pattern matching, not a finely-tuned funny bone. Clues like “Loads Tinder, fingers swiping right,” hinting at STOKES, leave AI swiping left.
A Very Human Art Form
AI may master facts and figures, but cryptics require something uniquely human. For now, it’s no match for the linguistic ingenuity and humor that expert setters like the Guardian’s Enigmatist and Nutmeg weave into their puzzles.
- Cryptics rely on riddles, puns, and misdirection
- Clues tell a mini “story” to decode
- Surfaces make sense but are deceptive
- Answers hide in anagrams, hidden words, and more
So while AI has vanquished the world’s best at checkers, chess and even complex games like StarCraft, cryptic crosswords remain an uncracked case. Their blend of left-brain logic and right-brain creativity, spiced with humor ranging from groan-worthy to downright esoteric, is a uniquely sapiens specialty… for now.
The Turing Test of Crosswords?
Perhaps cryptic puzzles are the ultimate Turing test, measuring AI’s grasp of human wit and illogic. Some suggest that instead of identifying motorcycles in photos,
“Online security should involve solving cryptic clues, ideally with fanciful puns.”
– A puzzling expert who preferred to remain anonymous
For the moment, composing and cracking truly cryptic clues remains a distinctly human art. We relish the groan-worthy “dad jokes,” the clever connections, that spark of insight when the answer finally slots into place. So grab a pencil, put on your thinking cap, and enjoy a face-off with the devious minds of cruciverbalists – human and AI alike.
Until artificial intelligence learns to laugh at painful puns, to think outside the “black and white squares,” we’ve got one domain where our gray matter reigns supreme. So here’s a clue for you: Solve fast before AI does (7). The solution: CRYPTIC!
