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 [...]

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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