Source The Guardian · Published · Open the original ↗
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Could this be a Deep Blue moment for the cryptic crossword?
A computer program has finally outdone humans at solving cryptic crosswords. Plus, more from around the puzzleverse
W hen the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997, it was an early victory for artificial intelligence over the human mind, and the culmination of decades of attempts. Almost 30 years later, a computer program has finally outdone humans at solving cryptic crosswords.
Earlier this month, a model called Darmok solved the final puzzle of the Times’s annual cryptic crossword competition about three minutes faster than Liam Hughes, 29, who became the contest’s youngest (human) winner .
After Deep Blue’s victory, the New York Times’s puzzle editor, Will Shortz, set engineers a challenge . “Is the computer going to be able to solve the clues involving puns and wordplay? I don’t think so,” he wrote. “In a much more wide-ranging and, frankly, complex game like crosswords, we humans still rate just fine.”
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