Science & technology | AI benchmarking

How to find the smartest AI

Developers are building fiendish tests only the best models can pass

illustration of a Rubik’s Cube floating in a digital space. One visible face of the cube features a robot head, while another shows a human face
Illustration: Ariel Davis
|6 min read

THE DIZZYING array of letters splattered across the page of one of Jonathan Roberts’s visual-reasoning questions resembles a word search assembled by a sadist. Test-takers aren’t merely tasked with finding the hidden words in the image, but with spotting a question written in the shape of a star and then answering that in turn (see below).

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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Extra credit”

From the June 21st 2025 edition

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