Andrej Karpathy proposes AI benchmark to build Lord of the Rings 3D scene

OpenAI co‑founder Andrej Karpathy announced a new AI benchmark that asks a large language model to generate an interactive 3D world from the opening paragraph of J.R.R. Tolkien's *The Lord of the Rings*. He instructed the model Claude Opus 5 to use three.js to create the scene within a 1 million‑token budget (about $10) and reported that the model produced roughly 5,500 lines of code in two hours, rendering a party at Bilbo's farewell and a treasure‑filled cave.

Karpathy noted that earlier benchmarks, such as the “pelican on a bicycle” SVG test, are now too easy for modern models. The new test aims to evaluate combined abilities in code generation, spatial reasoning, and multimedia creation, offering a more demanding measure of AI progress.