Claude AI has been continously playing Pokémon Red for over a month — it still can't beat it

A split image showing the Pokemon Red Game Boy cartridge and an iPhone with the Claude app visible on the screen — (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Artificial Intelligence is likely to lead to huge advances in human technology in the coming years, but if you're wondering what it can't do, the answer is beat a classic RPG that's nearly 30 years old.

Pokémon Red and Blue debuted in Japan in 1996, coming to the rest of the world in 1998, and while it led many of us into a lifetime of card collecting and monster battling, for AI model Claude it's led to no end of frustration.

Why AI can't beat Pokemon Red?

The model is taking notes as it progresses, updating its knowledge base of Pokémon, their types, weaknesses, and attacks.

It's also explaining its decisions in real-time through a text box, which is really neat — but at the time of writing, it was constantly encountering Zubats in Mt. Moon.

Despite having Pokémon at Levels 15. 24, 36, and even 39, it hadn't made it through the dungeon area — but at least it's racking up the XP.

There's an argument that because there's no "golden path" to get from A to Z throughout Pokémon, with random encounters and Pokémon trainers popping up regularly and no easy way for an AI to stick with a set "team" of critters.

Will it ever beat it?

A screengrab showing the Claude AI bot playing Pokemon — (Image credit: Twitch/ClaudePlaysPokemon)

Given infinite time, it's possible that Claude could beat Pokémon, but there's no telling how long it'll take. At least the current version is apparently better than prior versions, according to a Reddit thread following the action.

Anthropic has said the agent just kept trying to run away from battles originally, but it's getting better.

"Within hours, Claude defeated Brock [the game's first gym leader],"

"Days later, it trounced Misty [the second]" Anthropic said, describing the victories as "Progress that older models had little hope of achieving."

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Lloyd Coombes is a freelance tech and fitness writer. He's an expert in all things Apple as well as in computer and gaming tech, with previous works published on TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Live Science and more. You'll find him regularly testing the latest MacBook or iPhone, but he spends most of his time writing about video games as Gaming Editor for the Daily Star. He also covers board games and virtual reality, just to round out the nerdy pursuits.

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