AI Benchmarking Wars Hit Pokémon: Gemini vs. Claude in a Game of Twitch Streams and Custom Maps

The AI benchmarking debate has taken a quirky turn with Pokémon, where Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude models are being compared based on their gameplay progress, revealing how custom tools can skew results.

Well, ain’t this a twist? Even Pokémon’s getting dragged into the AI benchmarking mess. Last week, the internet went bananas over a tweet claiming Google’s Gemini model was schooling Anthropic’s Claude in the original Pokémon games. Gemini supposedly made it to Lavender Town, while Claude was still scratching its head at Mount Moon. But hold your Pikachus, folks—turns out Gemini had a little help. A custom minimap gave it the upper hand, letting it spot cuttable trees without breaking a sweat. Talk about a home-field advantage!

Now, I’m no AI expert, but even I can see this is more about the setup than the smarts. It’s like giving one racer a map and the other a blindfold and calling it a fair race. And it’s not just Pokémon. These AI models are getting tweaked and tuned to ace specific tests, making it harder to tell who’s really the top dog. Meta’s Llama 4 Maverick is another example, scoring better on benchmarks after some fine-tuning. So, what’s the takeaway? Comparing these models is becoming as tricky as navigating Rock Tunnel without Flash.