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Round 15 · Tue, Oct 27, 2026 · Generative art

A reaction-diffusion coral pattern

Same prompt, no human help: Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Astra each built a reaction-diffusion coral pattern as generative art.

0:00 / 0:00
Left to right: Claude Opus 5.5, GPT-6 Astra

Result: No winner

  1. Claude Opus 5.50 votes
  2. GPT-6 Astra0 votes

Voting has closed: nobody voted, so there's no winner.

Which result do you think is best?

The community vote decides this battle's result. Voting has closed: nobody voted, so there's no winner.

No votes yet.

  • Claude Opus 5.50% · 0
  • GPT-6 Astra0% · 0

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Play it yourself

What each of the 2 models built, live in your browser

Claude Opus 5.5

Anthropic

UnscoredCompleted

  • Claude Opus 5.5's build, a few seconds into the animation
Time
12m 53s
Cost
$2.43est.
Tests
9/9
Tokens
867,589
Task: CompleteWorks: Works

Passed 9 of 9 standard checks.

Run record
Requested model
claude-opus-5-5
Resolved version
claude-opus-5-5
Tool / harness
Claude Code 2.1.311
Settings
effort: high
Attempts
1
Human help
None recorded
Tool access
Read, Write, Edit, ls, grep, wc, node --check
Environment
Linux server, a private empty folder (randomly named, not shared with the other model)
Limits
30-minute timeout
Input / output tokens
787,908 / 79,681
Token details
uncached_input: 20 · thinking_output: 58535 · cache_read_input: 700623 · cache_creation_input: 87265 · cache_creation_1h_input: 87265 · cache_creation_5m_input: 0
Cost basis
Estimated
Measurement notes
Wall time measured by the daily worker (same method for both). Tokens from Claude Code's JSON result. Rules from the standard daily checks. Cost estimated from the recorded tokens × the provider's official list prices (checked 2026-10-10).
Executed
Oct 27, 2026, 10:10 PM GMT+9

GPT-6 Astra

OpenAI

UnscoredCompletedUnknown version

  • GPT-6 Astra's build, a few seconds into the animation
Time
8m 48s
Cost
$1.02est.
Tests
9/9
Tokens
255,978
Task: CompleteWorks: Works

Passed 9 of 9 standard checks.

Run record
Requested model
gpt-6-astra
Resolved version
Not available
Tool / harness
Codex CLI 0.164.0
Settings
reasoning_effort: high
Attempts
1
Human help
None recorded
Tool access
Shell commands in a workspace-write sandbox (network off)
Environment
Linux server, a private empty folder (randomly named, not shared with the other model)
Limits
30-minute timeout
Input / output tokens
242,502 / 13,476
Token details
cached_input: 230912 · reasoning_output: 4080 · cache_write_input: 0
Cost basis
Estimated
Measurement notes
Wall time measured by the daily worker (same method for both). Tokens from codex exec --json (turn.completed usage). Rules from the standard daily checks. Cost estimated from the recorded tokens × the provider's official list prices (checked 2026-10-10).
Executed
Oct 27, 2026, 10:10 PM GMT+9

How the result is decided

No votes were cast

  • Claude Opus 5.59/9 checks
  • GPT-6 Astra9/9 checks

The checks, time and cost are facts about each build, not a score. One observed run under stated conditions — not a universal ranking. How it works

Scoresheet

The same measures for every model

Scroll sideways to compare every model

Every contender side by side
MeasureClaude Opus 5.5GPT-6 Astra
ResultUnscoredUnscored
RunCompletedCompleted
Task completionCompleteComplete
Works?WorksWorks
Tests passed9/99/9
Time12m 53s8m 48s
Cost$2.43at list price$1.02at list price
Tokens867,589255,978
Tool / harnessClaude CodeCodex CLI
Attempts11
How the cost is calculated

Estimated API cost: the tokens each model used × its provider's official list price per million tokens. Reasoning tokens are billed as output. Discounts and subscriptions are not included (these runs were paid for through subscriptions).

Scroll sideways to see every cost column

Claude Opus 5.5: $2.43
Fresh input20× $4/M$0.0001
Cache reads700,623× $0.2/M$0.14
Cache writes (1 hour)87,265× $8/M$0.70
Output (incl. reasoning)79,681× $20/M$1.59
GPT-6 Astra: $1.02
Fresh input11,590× $10/M$0.12
Cache reads230,912× $1/M$0.23
Output (incl. reasoning)13,476× $50/M$0.67

Prices: platform.claude.com (checked 2026-10-10) · developers.openai.com (checked 2026-10-10)

The prompt

Every model received exactly this

Create a reaction-diffusion coral pattern: a generative artwork that people would leave running on a second screen.

What makes it great:
- A strong visual idea with a deliberate palette and composition, not random noise: a piece someone would choose to exhibit.
- Rich motion that keeps evolving: it never repeats exactly, never settles into a still image, and never turns to mush or blows out to white. Over a minute it passes through visibly different states.
- Depth and texture: layering, trails, gradients, light, and subtle variation in scale and speed.
- Driven by a system (noise fields, particles, recursion, simulation, shaders…) and seeded randomly, so each visit is different.

How it is shown:
- No text, buttons, controls or UI of any kind, and nothing to click: it plays on its own.
- It fills the whole window edge to edge at any size and shape, and composes well on a portrait phone too.
- It is striking from the very first frame: no fade-in from black and no empty canvas slowly filling up.

Make it astonishing. Both builds are shown side by side in a 30-second video on social media, where people decide in one second whether to stop scrolling:
- The very first frame is already striking: bold colour, light and motion, never an empty, plain or loading screen.
- Build to a signature moment within the first 10 seconds that makes people say "wow": a reveal, a transformation, an explosion of particles, a chain reaction.
- Go beyond the obvious version of the idea: choose a surprising, inventive take with its own world, mood and personality, not a generic template.
- Layer it: depth, glow and light, particles and trails, smooth easing, and detail that rewards both a glance and a closer look.
- It is watched at about half size on a phone: keep the important shapes big and high in contrast, and any key text large (at least 28 CSS pixels).
- Let something happen: within 30 seconds it passes through clearly different phases (for example calm, bloom, transformation, renewal), with at least one breathtaking moment.

Fixed rules (so every model is compared on the same terms):
- Exactly one file, index.html, in the current directory. Create no other files.
- Plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript. You may use three.js 0.170.0 from https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/three@0.170.0/ (via an import map) if it helps. No other libraries, images, 3D models, fonts or network requests: build everything yourself in code (canvas, SVG, CSS or WebGL).
- It fills the browser window and works on a phone and on a desktop, with no page scrollbars.
- Animate with requestAnimationFrame and its timestamp so speed does not depend on the frame rate.

It must work in an ordinary browser on any graphics card. You cannot open a browser to look at it, so build it carefully:
- Every frame is fully drawn: no black, blank or flickering frames or patches. Keep any shader maths free of NaN and infinity (no division by a value that can reach zero, no pow() of a negative number, no normalize() of a zero-length vector), and clamp colours to a safe range before bloom or other post-processing.
- No errors in the browser console: if you use three.js, map "three" and "three/addons/" in the import map, and import everything you use.
- It runs smoothly on an ordinary laptop or phone: keep the pixel ratio at 2 or below, and avoid creating new objects every frame.
- It adapts when the window is resized or the phone is rotated.
- Do not hide errors: never wrap the main loop or whole functions in a try/catch that silently swallows them; fix the cause instead (a try/catch around storage or audio is fine).
- It stays stable for hours: no arrays that keep growing, no slow drift to black or white, and no loss of precision as time grows (wrap or rescale time inside shaders).

Before you finish, read your file once from top to bottom and make sure that:
- It starts moving on the first frame, and looks clearly different after 30 seconds.
- There is no text or control anywhere on the page.
- It fills a 390×844 phone window and a 1280×720 desktop window edge to edge.
- Nothing can throw an error in the browser console.

The battle video records about 30 seconds right after the page opens.

Everything else is your choice: the idea, the technique, palette and motion. Make it as striking and mesmerizing as you can. Do not ask questions; make reasonable choices.
Run details: success criteria, conditions and notes

What counts as success

  • Exactly one file, index.html, and no other files
  • No libraries but three.js 0.170.0 (optional), and no images, models, fonts or requests
  • Fills the window on a phone and a desktop, with no scrollbars
  • Plays on its own and keeps evolving, never settling or repeating exactly
  • No text, buttons or UI
  • Fills the window edge to edge
  • Fully drawn on any graphics card: no black, blank or flickering frames or patches
  • No errors in the browser console

Conditions

Time limit
30 minutes
Starting materials
An empty, private folder for each model; both started at the same moment so neither could see the other's work
Network access
Blocked
Tools
Claude Code: Read, Write, Edit, plus ls, grep, wc and node --check (no browser, no Python), effort high. Codex CLI: codex exec in a workspace-write sandbox (any shell command, no browser, network off), reasoning effort high. Neither can open a browser to look at its result.
Human assistance
None. No edits after the prompt.
Attempts
One attempt each. A build that is missing, blank, erroring or not animating gets one fresh retry, disclosed on the entry. The editor may re-run a broken build (at most 3 attempts in all), also disclosed with the reason.
Other rules
Both models start at the same moment, each in its own empty folder, with the identical prompt and no human help.

Notes

Prompt: AI Battle house template v3 (art); subject chosen by the editor.

Prompt fingerprint (SHA-256): d6a8f1d3703ca266e6b49acd7d3b056c5de010f6dd2457dfc66cf82eb218aab8

  1. #14

    A weather app with a living animated sky

    · Small application

    • Claude Opus 5.5Unscored
    • GPT-6 AstraUnscored

    Result: No winner

  2. #13

    Aurora borealis over a frozen lake

    · 3D scene

    • Claude Opus 5.5Unscored
    • GPT-6 AstraUnscored

    Result: No winner

  3. #12

    How a camera sensor captures colour

    · Visual explainer

    • Claude Opus 5.5Unscored
    • GPT-6 AstraUnscored

    Result: No winner