The Download: AI puzzles and a path to our nearest star system
The Download: AI puzzles and a path to our nearest star system
摘要: The Download
The Download: AI puzzles and a path to our nearest star system
Plus: OpenAI is restricting its next model after rating it a “critical”
正文
The Download
The Download: AI puzzles and a path to our nearest star system
Plus: OpenAI is restricting its next model after rating it a “critical” cyber risk.
Thomas Macaulay
archive page
September 2, 2026
This is today's edition of
The Download
our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology.
AI models flub these intelligence tests. Can you fare any better?
Puzzles and games have always been central to AI development. The term “machine learning” was popularized in a 1959 article about an algorithm that learned to play checkers. Chess and Go are famous AI test beds too.
Judged purely on its puzzling skills, AI is improving a lot—and quickly. In late 2024, even the best models could figure out only 18% of the infamous New York Times Connections puzzles; by early 2025, some could solve them nearly perfectly every time.
But puzzles do more than highlight AI’s progress. Seeing where models succeed and fail, and where humans still beat them, offers a window into the technology’s strengths and weaknesses.
We’ve gathered seven puzzles that have stumped models at one time or another—now it’s your turn to see how you fare.
Take our test to find out whether you can outsmart AI
.
—Grace Huckins
is from our latest print magazine, which is all about kids.
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How AI plotted an interstellar journey to Alpha Centauri
A nonprofit organization called the Fermi Explorer Mission announced yesterday that it intends to launch a spacecraft to our nearest star system by the end of 2029.
It’s a hugely ambitious mission—if all goes well, the spacecraft could take up to 80,000 years to arrive at Alpha Centauri, which is 4.4 light-years away. To get there, it will follow a novel trajectory discovered by an AI system developed by PSI, a physics research lab.
Explore how AI found a new route to Alpha Centauri—and what the mission could tell us about alien life
.