Darmok program beats humans at cryptic crosswords for the first time

A program called Darmok solved the final puzzle of the Times's annual cryptic crossword competition about three minutes faster than human winner Liam Hughes. It runs on Gemini 3.1 Pro, Claude Fable 5, GPT-5 and GPT-6 Astra, with the first two doing most of the solving.

• Darmok finished the Times final puzzle three minutes ahead of the human winner
• The system combines Gemini 3.1 Pro, Claude Fable 5, GPT-5 and GPT-6 Astra
• In 2025 Darmok gave up on the final puzzle after 18 minutes
• Next challenge is teaching AI to set satisfying cryptic puzzles