News of the day
1. AI models can now solve complex Zelda puzzles requiring six moves of foresight, demonstrating advanced reasoning and problem-solving capabilities beyond text generation. → Read more
2. Authors, including John Grisham, sue OpenAI, Google, Meta, and others for book piracy, seeking significant damages for alleged use of works from illegal libraries. → Read more
3. Google Health AI launches MedASR, an open-weights Conformer-based medical speech-to-text model for clinical dictation and physician-patient conversations. → Read more
4. AI coding assistants are revolutionizing development, but security lags behind. Gartner and SACR reports highlight the need for new AppSec strategies to manage AI-generated code risks. → Read more
Our take
Hi Dotikers!
Tonight is Christmas Eve. While you're unwrapping presents under the tree or dodging Aunt Karen's questions about your love life, somewhere in a datacenter, AI models are solving Zelda puzzles. Festive vibes.
A journalist from The Decoder had the original idea of testing the reasoning capabilities of major AI models on an iconic Nintendo puzzle. The concept: clicking an orb changes its color and that of its neighbors, with the goal being to turn everything blue. At least six moves to plan ahead. The kind of brain-teaser that can ruin your Christmas afternoon if you unwrapped the latest Zelda this morning.
The results are pretty impressive. GPT-5.2-Thinking nailed the solution every time, clean and effortless. Gemini 3 Pro got there too, but sometimes after 42 pages of trial and error, like your cousin who insists on assembling the IKEA furniture without the manual. Claude Opus 4.5 initially stumbled on interpreting the image before pulling out a mathematical equation to crack the whole thing. Elegant, if not exactly intuitive.
What this festive anecdote reveals is the spectacular evolution of spatial and logical reasoning in AI. Coupled with autonomous agents like Nvidia's NitroGen, capable of playing games and documenting their runs, we can already picture a future where human-written walkthroughs will join Christmas decorations in the attic: relics of another era.
Happy Christmas Eve to all. And if a puzzle stumps you tonight between the Yule log and the champagne, take comfort: an AI has probably already solved it while you were reading this newsletter.
G.
Meme of the day
