On Tuesday afternoon, Anthropic launched Claude Performs Pokémon on Twitch, a livestream of Anthropic’s latest AI mannequin, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, enjoying a sport of Pokémon Crimson. It’s grow to be a captivating experiment of types, showcasing the capabilities of in the present day’s AI tech and other people’s reactions to them.
AI researchers have used all types of video video games, from Avenue Fighter to Pictionary, to check new fashions — usually extra for amusement than utility. However Anthropic stated that Pokémon proved to be a helpful benchmark for Claude 3.7 Sonnet, which may successfully “suppose” by the kinds of puzzles the sport incorporates.
Like OpenAI’s o3-mini and DeepSeek’s R1, Claude 3.7 Sonnet can “purpose” its means by robust challenges, like enjoying a online game designed for youngsters. Whereas the mannequin’s non-reasoning predecessor, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, failed the very starting of Pokémon Crimson — exiting the participant’s dwelling in Pallet City — Claude 3.7 Sonnet managed to win three health club chief badges.
The most recent Claude nonetheless runs into hassle, although. Hours into the Twitch stream, the mannequin was deterred by a rock wall, which it couldn’t stroll by irrespective of how exhausting it tried.
One Twitch person summed up the state of affairs this manner: “who would win, a pc AI with 1000’s of hours put into programming it, or 1 rock wall?”
Ultimately, Claude realized that it may navigate across the wall.
On the one hand, it’s irritating to observe Claude traverse Pokémon Crimson with the velocity of a Slowpoke, reasoning by every step with excruciating contemplation. But it’s additionally oddly compelling. The left of the stream exhibits Claude’s “thought course of,” whereas the fitting exhibits real-time gameplay.
At one level, Claude tried to find Professor Oak inside his laboratory, however acquired confused, as a result of there have been different NPCs within the scene.
“I discover a brand new character has appeared beneath me — a personality with black hair and what seems to be a white coat at coordinates (2, 10),” Claude wrote. “This is likely to be Professor Oak! Let me go down and discuss to him.”
Claude then proceeded to mistakenly discuss to an NPC apart from the Professor — an NPC the mannequin had spoken with a number of occasions earlier than. A few of the thousand-odd individuals within the Twitch chat began to get antsy. Others, notably those that’d been watching the stream for quite a lot of minutes, have been much less apprehensive.
“Guys chill,” one individual wrote within the chat. “Earlier than we exited and entered Oak’s lab like 10 occasions earlier than understanding methods to transfer on.”
For longtime Twitch customers, the format of Anthropic’s stream may really feel nostalgic. Over a decade in the past, hundreds of thousands of individuals tried to play Pokémon Crimson directly in a first-of-its-kind on-line social experiment known as Twitch Performs Pokémon. Every person may management the participant character by way of Twitch chat, leading to predictably chaotic gameplay.
Some AI researchers have cited Twitch Performs Pokémon as an inspiration for his or her work. In October 2023, Seattle-based software program engineer Peter Whidden printed a YouTube video detailing how he educated a reinforcement studying algorithm to play Pokémon. His AI spent over 50,000 hours enjoying the sport earlier than it discovered to efficiently navigate it. One problem was that the AI most well-liked to admire the pixelated surroundings as an alternative of truly enjoying the sport.
AI-powered “reenactments” of Twitch Performs Pokémon like Whidden’s and Anthropic’s are entertaining, however just a little bittersweet on the identical time. The unique stream was such a pivotal second in Twitch historical past as a result of it introduced individuals collectively in an surprising means. Everybody was on the identical staff, working towards the purpose of getting the participant character to cease working in circles and really progress by the sport.
In 2025, it appears we’re not teammates, however spectators, watching an AI mannequin attempt to play a sport many people acquired the dangle of once we have been 5 years outdated. It’s an AI-motivated microcosm of a bigger development: Our experiences on-line are shifting from shared, communal actions to extra solitary ones.
