“Humanity has prevailed (for now!),” so said Polish programmer Przemysław Dębiak after emerging victorious in a coding contest whose competitors included an advanced AI model created by AI giant OpenAI.
Dębiak, who happens to be a former employee of OpenAI, was showing off his programming skills at the AtCoder World Tour Finals held in Tokyo last week.
The 10-hour session left the Pole, who competed under the name Psyho, feeling “completely exhausted” and “barely alive,” according to a post on X.
As for the AI model, well, presumably it felt just fine and could’ve carried on without complaint.
It’s believed to be the first coding contest to have allowed the participation of an AI model, with the technology gaining prominence for its rapidly improving programming smarts.
OpenAI’s AI model participated as part of a special “Humans vs AI” exhibition match conducted within the Heuristic division of the contest. Called OpenAIAHC, the AI model took on 12 top-ranking human programmers — with Dębiak among them — on a 10-hour optimization challenge.
The Polish programmer managed to finish in first place by a margin of just over 9%, with the AI placing second — ahead of all of the other human contestants.
Interestingly, Dębiak said in comments after the contest that it was the AI model’s presence that motivated him to keep going, as he could see during the match-up that he was just ahead of the model, and he very much wanted to keep it that way. Without the AI’s participation, his score would have been “much, much lower,” Dębiak told Business Insider.
The AI’s impressive performance is a clear demonstration that advanced AI is making real progress when it comes to edging out the world’s best human programmers in open-ended, creative problem-solving tasks. Indeed, it’s hard to think that it won’t come out on top at next year’s contest … if it’s invited back, that is.
The rise of AI has helped us make some huge leaps. From helping with medicine research to spotting cancer, the advances enabled by AI have been pretty
Google’s Pixel Buds wireless earbuds have offered a fantastic real-time translation facility for a while now. Over the past few years, brands such as
You may have occasionally joked about how companies these days seem to be falling over themselves to launch something, anything, that has AI, even jus
Google is steadily rolling out contextual improvements to Gemini that make it easier for users to derive AI’s benefits across its core products. For e
Meta delivered an unexpected runaway success with its Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses, and now, it is headed to the runaway for the latest take. At the
Snapchat is bringing generative AI videos to its social platform. The company has today introduced what it calls Video Gen AI Lenses, which essentiall
Windows 11 has support for voice commands like “Open Edge” largely for accessibility purposes but with the latest Insider preview build, it’s taking a
Mobile World Congress Read our complete coverage of Mobile World Congress Opera web browser is entering the agentic era of AI tools. At MWC 2025, the
We are a comprehensive and trusted information platform dedicated to delivering high-quality content across a wide range of topics, including society, technology, business, health, culture, and entertainment.
From breaking news to in-depth reports, we adhere to the principles of accuracy and diverse perspectives, helping readers find clarity and reliability in today’s fast-paced information landscape.
Our goal is to be a dependable source of knowledge for every reader—making information not only accessible but truly trustworthy. Looking ahead, we will continue to enhance our content and services, connecting the world and delivering value.
