21-07-2025
Human beats AI in Tokyo coding contest!
Tokyo: Atthe 2025 AtCoder World Tour Finals' Heuristic Challenge held in Tokyo, renowned coder Przemysław Dębiak — widely recognized in the programming world as 'Psyho' and a former member of the OpenAI team — edged out the specially designed AI model in a tightly contested battle. Hosted in Tokyo by the esteemed Japanese competitive programming site AtCoder, this year's grand finale introduced a unique twist — a 'Humans vs AI' showdown. Considered the pinnacle of invitation-only programming competitions, this elite tournament welcomes just 12 of the highest-ranked coders annually, chosen through rigorous qualification 10 hours, the event tasked participants with tackling one exceptionally difficult optimization problem—completely unaided, with no access to libraries, documentation, or outside help. Though the AI took an early lead, Dębiak ultimately overtook it. Although AI initially pulled ahead, Dębiak eventually surpassed it by drawing purely on his instincts, creativity, and deep expertise. Fellow coder Stanisław Eysmont commented, 'Przemek succeeded without pre-built tools, without reference materials, and without any guidance.'
'I was so tired. I actually felt at some point that I should take a break,' Dębiak, who competed under the name 'Psyho,' told the reporters. 'But at the same time, I was very close to getting a score comparable to the model,' he added. In a historic first, the contest opened its doors to an AI competitor, with OpenAI not only sponsoring the event but also entering its custom AHC model as an official participant. To ensure fairness between human participants and the AI system built by OpenAI, AtCoder supplied standardized hardware to all contenders. The rules of the tournament allowed the use of any programming language supported on the AtCoder platform, and there were no penalties for incorrect submissions. Dębiak was also instrumental during his tenure at OpenAI, serving as one of the pioneering engineers behind OpenAI Five—the AI system that famously triumphed over professional Dota 2 players in 2019. In a post shared on the social media platform X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged Dębiak's win and wrote, "good job Psyho." OpenAI also publicly recognised its tool's performance on X, stating, "Our model took 2nd place at the AtCoder Heuristics World Finals! Congrats to the champion for holding us off this time."
