Did Google's AI agents really build an operating system for $916?

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• Critique Google’s claim that AI agents built an OS from “a single prompt” for $916.92 — the prompt was later revealed to be thousands of lines long, and the number of failed attempts before the successful run was never disclosed.
• No release of the actual prompt, source code, or execution logs, and no analysis of whether the agent produced original code versus reproducing known toy-OS implementations from training data (a common undergrad project).
• Credit Google for disclosing cost and token usage (2.6B tokens) — more transparency than most vendor capability claims offer.
• Practical takeaway: call for shared methodological norms for “open-world evaluations” and for independent academic/nonprofit/government verification rather than relying on vendor-generated narratives.