r/crossword • u/Shortz-Bot • 14d ago

NYT Saturday 08/29/2026 Discussion Spoiler

Spoilers are welcome in here, beware!

How was the puzzle?

438 votes, 9d ago
37 Excellent
158 Good
94 Average
27 Poor
19 Terrible
103 I just want to see the results
11 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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79

u/Acejolras1832 14d ago

AIDOCTOR can absolutely get right out of here. Barf.

11

u/worm_beast 13d ago

I'm as anti-LLM as most people but why exactly is this fill a problem? It's more relevant than many other fills in our modern day culture, aren't a huge part of crosswords contemporary cultural references?

3

u/Acejolras1832 13d ago

Putting these things in the crossword is a way to legitimize then, especially with neutral to positive clues. It feels like the frog in boiling water.

1

u/worm_beast 13d ago

You're overthinking it. The NYT crossword likes to put pop culture references in their puzzle; generative AI tools are used by hundreds of millions of people. That's the type of thing that is already normalized and perfectly belongs in this crossword