Latest news with #PrzemysławDębiak
Digital Trends
2 days ago
- Digital Trends
Human wins coding contest … but AI finishes a close second
'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. Recommended Videos 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.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Human programmer beats OpenAI's custom AI in 10-hour marathon, wins World Coding Championship — Polish programmer might be the last human winner
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Przemysław 'Psyho' Dębiak, a 42-year-old programmer from Gdynia, Poland, made history by defeating OpenAI's custom AI model at the AtCoder World Tour Finals (AWTF) 2025 "Humans vs AI" contest in Tokyo. Considered one of the most prestigious coding tournaments in the world, the AWTF invites just 12 of the top-ranked human programmers—and, for the first time, an AI competitor—to tackle its grueling challenges. After a 10-hour coding marathon, Dębiak edged out the AI by roughly 9.5%, clinching first place while the OpenAI-built model settled for second. 'Humanity has prevailed (for now)!' Dębiak wrote on X, confessing he'd slept only around 10 hours over three days while pushing himself to the limit. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman aptly responded with, 'Good job, Psyho.' The AI model, branded OpenAIAHC, was widely expected to dominate the market. Still, Dębiak's innovative, heuristic-driven approach—using problem-solving shortcuts and educated guesses instead of brute-force calculation—secured the win. Contest administrator Yoichi Iwata praised his distinctive method, noting that while the AI excelled at raw optimization, it 'fell short of human creativity.' The AtCoder World Tour Finals (AWTF) is regarded as the ultimate stage for heuristic programming contests that focus on 'good-enough' solutions to complex, unsolvable problems rather than perfect ones. This year's challenge tasked competitors with plotting a robot's path across a 30×30 grid using the fewest possible moves, an NP-hard optimization problem with countless possible outcomes. With no access to external libraries or documentation, success relied on intuition, creativity, and adaptability—qualities where human ingenuity can still outthink the raw speed and precision of AI models. Dębiak, a former OpenAI engineer who helped develop OpenAI Five (the Dota 2 AI), competed using only Visual Studio Code with basic autocomplete and admitted the AI pushed him to his limits: 'I was close to the model's score, and that pushed me to give everything.' Near the end of the 10-hour marathon, he overtook OpenAIAHC to claim victory and a 500,000 yen prize. A veteran algorithmic competitor, Mensa member, and four-time TopCoder Open Marathon champion, Dębiak has never held a full-time job and once even joked about considering careers from DJing to professional poker. His win carries symbolic weight, a human triumphing over AI in a field where machines typically excel. All that being said, AI's steady progress is undeniable—Stanford's 2025 AI Index found coding benchmarks jumped from 4.4% AI success in 2023 to 71.7% in 2024. With tools like GitHub Copilot used daily by over 90% of developers, AI is reshaping workflows. However, this win highlights that creativity, endurance, and intuition —especially in long-form heuristic challenges —remain human strengths. Dębiak isn't naive about the challenge ahead, saying, 'It's easy to imagine a different problem where AI would win and humans would be far behind.'. Still, this feels like a human John Henry moment—a testament not just to sheer human will, but to the spark of creativity machines haven't replicated and (hopefully) will never be able to. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Hans India
3 days ago
- Science
- Hans India
Human Coder Triumphs Over OpenAI in 10-Hour AtCoder Showdown
In a landmark moment for human ingenuity, Polish programmer Przemysław Dębiak, better known in the coding world as Psyho, emerged victorious over an advanced OpenAI model in a grueling 10-hour programming challenge at the AtCoder World Tour Finals 2025. Despite the formidable pace and precision of AI, it was sheer human persistence that clinched the win — if only just. Shortly after the event, Dębiak took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter), posting: 'I'm completely exhausted. ... I'm barely alive. Humanity has prevailed (for now!).' Dębiak, who once worked for OpenAI himself, rose above exhaustion and intense competition to score a staggering 1,812,272,558,909 points, edging out the AI entrant 'OpenAIAHC,' which scored 1,654,675,725,406 — just 9.5% behind. The remaining ten human finalists, all top-tier programmers selected through a year-long ranking process, couldn't match the pace of either. Held in Tokyo by the renowned Japanese platform AtCoder, this year's finals featured an unprecedented 'Humans vs AI' special event. The programming community watched closely as twelve of the world's top coders took on a sophisticated AI designed by OpenAI — the same company behind ChatGPT. The stakes were high, not just in terms of points, but in what the outcome would symbolise in the ongoing conversation around human versus machine capabilities. The format of the event was intentionally designed to push limits. Spanning 600 minutes, the competition involved solving an extremely complex optimization puzzle — a hallmark of the Heuristic Contest category. These types of challenges are famously hard, often requiring approximate or creative solutions under time pressure. To ensure fairness, all participants — human and AI — operated on identical hardware. Submissions were spaced out by a mandatory five-minute cooldown. While the AI system outperformed the rest of the human participants, the fact that Dębiak bested the machine has quickly become a symbolic victory — a testament to human resilience in the age of automation. Even OpenAI acknowledged the significance. In a public statement, the company wrote: 'Our model took 2nd place at the AtCoder Heuristics World Finals! Congrats to the champion for holding us off this time.' OpenAI CEO Sam Altman added his voice with a brief but pointed message: 'Good job psyho.' Dębiak's win is not only a personal milestone but a reminder that human creativity and grit remain highly relevant — especially in arenas dominated by logic, speed, and algorithmic prowess. The result has sparked fresh reflection on how AI and humans will coexist in technical professions going forward. As AI tools continue to advance and close the gap, many wonder how long humans can hold their lead. Yet for now, the scoreboard — and perhaps something more — remains in favour of humanity.
