--- title: "Watching One of the World’s Most Advanced AIs Try to Beat Pokémon Red Is Strangely Fascinating" description: "Claude 3.7 Sonnet AI is exploring the world of Pokémon Red, doing its best to beat Nintendo's classic RPG for the Game Boy." date: "2025-02-27" modified: "2025-02-27" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/claude-ai-pokemon-red" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "anthropic" - "claude" - "the digest" - "video games" --- # Watching One of the World’s Most Advanced AIs Try to Beat Pokémon Red Is Strangely Fascinating ![Claude 3.7 Sonnet AI is exploring the world of Pokémon Red, doing its best to beat Nintendo's classic RPG for the Game Boy.]() *\Image: Twitch / Getty / Futurism\* To prepare to take over the real world, AI models are first conquering virtual ones. On Tuesday, Anthropic kicked off its Twitch livestream titled "[Claude Plays Pokémon]()." Without human intervention, the Google-backed startup's latest AI model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, explores the world of Pokémon Red, doing its best to beat Nintendo's classic RPG for the Game Boy, released in the halcyon days of 1998. And it's not doing too badly, either. So far, Claude 3.7 has managed to clinch three Gym Leader badges, most recently besting Lt. Surge at the Vermilion City Gym. That's considerably better than [Claude 3.5](), which had stalled at Pallet Town, the game's starting area. Endearingly, Claude 3.7 even gives nicknames to its roster of battling creatures, christening its choice of starter Pokémon, Squirtle, as "Shell." https://twitter.com/AnthropicAI/status/1894419025892880555 Video games ranging from [Minecraft]() to [Goat ]()[Simulator]() have become a popular way of testing [agentic AI models](), or AI models that can autonomously interact with a given environment. In the case of Pokémon, the game's turn-based combat, not to mention simple dialog options, make an ideal testing ground for the LLM's newly-boasted "reasoning" capabilities. There's a limited number of options available to the player, making the challenge approachable. Viewers of the livestream can witness Claude's real-time thought process in a window next to the gameplay, providing some amusing insights. "It appears a wild Pokémon encounter has started when I moved!" reads the AI's ersatz stream of consciousness. "Let me press 'a' to advance through this unusual dialogue… and prepare for battle. I'll lead with SPIKE who is at full health." That said, the AI's thought process as it navigates the game's open world portions can be painstakingly circuitous. *TechCrunch* [notes an instance]() where Claude was stumped by a rock wall that it kept trying to walk through, taking forever to realize that it could simply path around the minor obstacle. According to Anthropic, Claude mainly sees the world by analyzing a constant stream of screenshots of the game — though often erroneously, the startup admits. It also can read the game's memory, gleaning information like the player's coordinates. And in what is the biggest upgrade from its predecessor, Claude 3.7 keeps an ever-changing "knowledge base" to store notes about its gameplay as it goes along, like where things are, or [what sequence to press buttons in]() to execute certain game mechanics. Actually controlling the game, meanwhile, is accomplished by a custom interface that lets Claude press virtual buttons, Anthropic said, along with a pathfinding tool that helps the model determine how to move from location to location. Clunkiness and laborious pace notwithstanding, watching the AI model stumble around and occasionally succeed can be an oddly fascinating spectacle. If nothing else, it's a nostalgic trip down memory lane — or an excuse to keep some good old Pokémon music in the background. **More on gaming:** *[Elon Musk's Video Game Character Caught Leveling While He Was at Inauguration]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()