- Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro has formally finished Pokémon Blue
- The sport ran as a livestream experiment through an impartial engineer
- Gemini performed the sport with some mild developer intervention, however most commonly by itself
Google‘s Gemini AI won’t have handed the Turing check but, however it could be very talked-about within the schoolyard 3 a long time in the past after profitable a sport of Pokémon Blue. The Gemini 2.5 Pro is now each Google’s maximum complicated AI type and a Pokémon Master, as demonstrated in a Twitch livestream known as “Gemini Plays Pokémon” run through an engineer unaffiliated with Google named Joel Z. Even Google CEO Sundar Pichai joined the party, sharing a clip of the victory on X.
What a end! Gemini 2.5 Pro simply finished Pokémon Blue!  Special because of @TheCodeOfJoel for growing and operating the livestream, and to everybody who cheered Gem on alongside the best way. %.twitter.com/E2pn3tpfEbMay 3, 2025
You would possibly surprise why an AI type beating a thirty-year-old sport drew such a lot consideration. It’s in part as a result of the spectacle, but in addition as a result of AI type competition. Back in February, Anthropic showcased the development its Claude type used to be making in beating Pokémon Red. They used the sport to sing their own praises Claude’s “extended thinking and agent training” and introduced a “Claude Plays Pokémon” Twitch circulation, inspiring Joel Z.
Before crowning Gemini as the only true AI Ash Ketchum, it’s value noting a couple of caveats. For one, Claude hasn’t technically overwhelmed Pokémon Red but, however that doesn’t routinely make Gemini higher, as they hired other equipment, referred to as “agent harnesses.” The fashions don’t play the sport immediately like a human with a controller would. Instead, they’re fed screenshots of the sport setting at the side of overlays of key knowledge, then requested to generate the following absolute best motion. That choice is then translated into a real button press within the sport.
And Gemini hasn’t been going it totally by myself. Joel admitted he every now and then stepped in to make enhancements, regardless that he has made some degree of doing so most effective to support a few of Gemini’s reasoning. He additionally plans to proceed running at the Gemini Plays Pokémon challenge to make additional enhancements.
Pokémon AI
What makes this greater than a unusual web stunt is what it implies about the place AI is headed. Playing a sport like Pokémon Blue isn’t about speedy reflexes or memorizing controller inputs. It’s about long-term technique, adapting to surprises, and navigating ambiguous demanding situations. These are all spaces the place AI in most cases wishes growth. That Gemini may no longer most effective dangle its personal however end the sport (with minimum nudging) means that fashions find it irresistible are getting higher at prolonged technique.
It’s additionally the type of milestone the common individual can perceive. You can intuitively perceive what the AI is doing when bumbling via Lavender Town or misreading a combat tactic, and evaluate it to the decisions you would make in that context. Of path, you should not overstate what this implies. AI can now end a sport you most likely beat in center college, however it additionally highlights how a lot human effort nonetheless is going into making AI appear self reliant.
Whether or no longer Claude or Gemini change into true Pokémasters does not subject such a lot as what they are enjoying method for AI’s construction. Showing that AI may not simply crunch numbers or generate unsolicited mail emails may alternate how other people recall to mind what AI can do, even with lend a hand. And if that is how AI fashions get started finding out tips on how to function in unpredictable, open-ended environments, neatly, beating Mewtwo would possibly simply be a stepping stone to one thing much more profound. Or a minimum of, somewhat extra productive.
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