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Ji Y. Son, Professor of Psychology, California State University, Los Angeles

Button-pushing explorers: How to grasp that AI agents can do amazing things while knowing nothing

Behavior Atari
The simple process of taking an action, assessing what happens and adjusting can lead to smart-seeming behavior. Westend61 via Getty Images

The nonprofit ARC Prize Foundation on May 1, 2026, released the results of a new benchmark: a test of an AI system’s ability to solve a game. The results were striking – humans scored 100%, while the most advanced AI systems scored under 1%.

At first glance, this may be surprising to users of AI who are impressed by its polished essays, codebases and multistep projects generated in seconds. How can these brilliant AI systems struggle with these simple Tetris-shape puzzles?

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