Could this be a Deep Blue moment for the cryptic crossword?
Darmok, an artificial intelligence programme, has beaten the human winner of The Times’s annual cryptic crossword competition, finishing the final puzzle about three minutes faster. The result marks a new milestone in AI’s progress with cryptic crosswords, which demand intricate wordplay and interpretation.
Computer scientist Sid Chatterjee developed Darmok, which combines four AI models and improved on an unsuccessful attempt the previous year. A clue about a wolf trap, solved as “SNARF”, helped distinguish its performance: “trap” signals “SNARE”, and removing the bottom stroke of the E turns it into an F. Chatterjee says Darmok has no clear pattern of difficulty, though it struggles more with puzzles by John Henderson; creating satisfying cryptic puzzles remains a much harder challenge.
- Darmok beat the human winner of The Times crossword final.
- It finished about three minutes faster.
- Setting good cryptic puzzles may be AI’s next major challenge.
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A cryptic crossword is a word puzzle in which each clue typically gives both a definition and a wordplay route to the answer. Solvers must spot conventions such as an instruction to remove or rearrange letters, as well as interpret the clue’s wording.
Darmok is an AI programme developed by computer scientist Sid Chatterjee. It combines four AI models and has been designed to solve cryptic clues, a task that depends on recognising varied forms of wordplay.
The Times’s annual competition puts a computer solver against a leading human competitor. Darmok’s result shows how AI is progressing at solving these puzzles, while creating cryptic crosswords that people find satisfying remains a separate challenge.