AI Crossword Solver – Can it be any good?

Being that ChatGPT has become a media sensation as of late for its problem solving capabilities, we thought that it would not struggle solving a cryptic crossword.

Not long ago people would have not have an idea what we were talking about, if we were to ask them about artificial intelligence bots.

We are talking about the time before the launch of the famous ChatGTP from OpenAi, which has taken the media by storm. People are divided in how they perceive chatGPT. In one hand it is perceived as a tool that provides you the ability to create texts or articles that cannot be differentiated from those written by a human. It will find it’s uses for students who want to finish their homework quickly or it will be a dangerous tool that some believe will bring existential threats like the one in Terminator movie.

It has many many applications and it has the potential of changing the world as we know it. However being that we are a crossword fans community our concern is a rather simple one.

Could it solve a difficult crossword puzzle? The ones that keep challenging sharp minds ever since they came out. We decided to give it a try.

Once you know the most basic rules most of the clues can be solved. Clues have a definition for the answer. And oncw you know the letter and the length and how it crosses with another word then you will probably come up with the correct word (from a wordlist). That looks like a easy enough job for the AI.

We tested the first clue which was a simple one.
The clue was
Outlay a meal and it had 6 letters.
The ai had a correct answer which was the word s-p-r-e-a-d..

Solving the next clue, which also contained two definitions, wasn’t as successful:

The second time the bot was not able to solve the clue:
German song told a tale which had 4 letters.
The correct answer would have been l-i-e-d. which is the word for a german song.

The results were quite disappointing and the ai came up with unrelated and incorrect answers. Out of 25 clues only 5 were solved so, at least for now it is safe to say that crosswords are best solved by human players as AI is far from correct.