These aren't task free. They're just implicit task, "figure out what you're expected to do". These sort of riddle tasks are 100% dependent on who does the expecting.

This is not a new idea. Traditional IQ tests pivoted to them (they weren't originally like that), and no doubt they have great "discriminative power", because having the ability to figure out what's expected of you and not getting intimidated by cryptic and obtuse tasks put before you, are certainly extremely valuable skills in e.g business and politics.

But I always respected real tasks more. A question on a math test is honest; if it doesn't precisely define what's expected of you, the taskmaster has done a bad job, not you. It still can be extremely demanding.

An implicit task, by comparison, smells more of riddles, gnosticism. Do you know the way? Do you know the genre? (Once you know the genre of implicit tasks typical to IQ tests, you can easily increase your performance by a lot).

For that matter, this idea isn't new to machine learning either. Francois Chollet did it already, and he was IMO just as wrongheaded in thinking implicit tasks are somehow more indicative of "true intelligence" than explicit ones.