A brainteaser from the ARC challenge, designed to stump AI, currently has thousands of humans scratching their heads too.
The ARC benchmark (Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus), created by Google engineer François Chollet, is a set of small puzzles that test how well AI models can solve problems based on a few examples. These puzzles are designed to check if a model can understand patterns and figure out solutions from limited information. It helps researchers see how well AI systems can think creatively and solve problems like humans do.
Chollet, an artificial intelligence researcher and Senior Staff Software Engineer at Google, has now announced the ARC Prize: a $1,000,000 competition to create an AI that can adapt to novelty and solve simple reasoning problems.
In an X post announcing the ARC prize, Chollet said he published the ARC benchmark four years ago. “ARC tasks are easy for humans. They aren't complex. They don't require specialized knowledge – a child can solve them. But modern AI struggles with them,” he wrote.
However, one puzzle on the ARC Prize website has stumped thousands of social media users. A screenshot of the puzzle has been widely shared on X.
Take a look at the ARC challenge puzzle below:
“I showed this to my dad. He couldn't solve it. He's 57,” an X user wrote while sharing the puzzle. His post has collected over 1.8 million views.
{{/usCountry}}“I showed this to my dad. He couldn't solve it. He's 57,” an X user wrote while sharing the puzzle. His post has collected over 1.8 million views.
{{/usCountry}}Have you been able to solve it? If not, here is a hint: The grey squares in the “input” section are dividers, not part of the puzzle.
The solution
Several X users explained that the red squares in “output” represent the place where the two blue patterns intersect. The grey line is a demarcation between the two blue patterns in the “input” section.
If the two blue patterns are placed on top of each other, the squares where they overlap will be the “output” solution.
Here is a more visual explanation:
More such problems can be found on the ARC Prize website.
In his X thread announcing the ARC Prize, Chollet explained that ARC problems are tough for AI because they are designed to be resistant to memorization.