The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, or ACPT, annually gathers contestants from around the world to tackle eight original crossword puzzles. This year, the top ACPT performer was not a human but was instead an artificial intelligence system built in part by a team of UC Berkeley researchers.
According to Will Shortz, crossword editor for The New York Times and founder and director of the ACPT, this year’s tournament was held virtually and had a record number of 1,287 contestants. While the tournament was built for human competitors, the AI system that “won,” named Dr.Fill, competed unofficially, Shortz noted.
Dr.Fill solved the final puzzle in 49 seconds, according to a Berkeley Engineering press release, more than two minutes faster than the top human contestant.