The idea

Problems like solving crosswords from clues have been defined as AI-complete (Littman 2000) and are extremely challenging for machines since there is no closed-world assumption and they require human-level knowledge. Interestingly, for the first time since AI's kick-off, there is a first nucleus of technology, such as search engines, information retrieval and machine learning techniques, that enable computers to enfold with semantics real-life concepts. Our goal is that of designing a software system, called WebCrow, whose major assumption is to attack crosswords making use of the Web as its primary source of knowledge, being this an extremely rich and self-updating repository of human knowledge.