AI beats a thousand of the world's best human crossword solvers

A crossword-solving AI has beaten more than a thousand of the best human solvers at the prestigious American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

By Matthew Sparkes

AI has beaten more than a thousand of the best human crossword solvers at a prestigious competition and can complete The New York Times crossword more than 80 per cent of the time.

Dan Klein at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues created a two-part AI model called the Berkeley Crossword Solver (BCS) as a collaborative project during the covid-19 lockdown.

One component analysed individual crossword clues and created a range of solutions that …