“A Year Late, Claude Finally Beats Pokémon” by Julian Bradshaw

Credit: ClaudePlaysPokemon Elevator Shanty by Kurukkoo Disclaimer: like some previous posts in this series, this was not primarily written by me, but by a friend. I did substantial editing, however. ClaudePlaysPokemon feat. Opus 4.7 has finally beaten Pokémon Red, fulfilling the challenge set over a year ago when LLMs playing Pokémon went briefly, slightly viral. Victory Screen! Let's get the throat-clearing out of the way: this doesn't make 4.7 a clear breakthrough in intelligence over 4.6 or 4.5. It's smarter, yes, as we'll discuss below, but not by something one could honestly call a big leap. Rather, step changes have finally accumulated to the point of victory. And to give other models their fair shake: after criticism over its elaborate harness,[1] GeminiPlaysPokemon has beaten Pokémon with progressively weaker harnesses, including about two months ago with a harness comparable to the one Claude uses.[2] As such, this is a bit of a valedictory post, closing off the cycle of Claude playing Pokémon Red, relating anecdotes for the fun of it, and discussing improvements in Opus 4.7, as well as speculating a bit on what this has all meant. Retrospective Anecdotes on Claude 4.5 and 4.6 Our last post, on Opus [...] ---Outline:(01:37) Retrospective Anecdotes on Claude 4.5 and 4.6(06:34) Harness Changes for 4.7(07:52) Improvements (4.6 + 4.7)(08:16) Vision(09:31) Less Tunnel Vision(10:12) Another Level of Spatial Awareness(10:25) Breaks Out of Loops EVEN FASTER(10:55) Victory Road(11:50) The Little Things(12:52) Concluding Thoughts(15:29) Notes on Pokémon as a benchmark The original text contained 10 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: May 16th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sehJYg5Yny9fvpbpt/a-year-late-claude-finally-beats-pokemon --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.