Are humans still better than AI at coding? Human coder beats AI in epic 10-hour showdown
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Are humans still better than AI at coding? Human coder beats AI in epic 10-hour showdown")
Human coder beats AI in epic 10-hour showdown Photograph: (Freepik)
Big tech companies like Microsoft and Meta are now using AI to help with the coding. In May, Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei said that AI could take over 20% of office jobs in the next five years.
Computers have already beaten humans in games like chess and poker but in competitive coding, humans are still slightly ahead of artificial intelligence (AI). Earlier this month, Polish coder and mind sports champion Przemyslaw Debiak, also known as “Psyho,” has beaten the OpenAI’s AI system at the AtCoder World Tour Finals 2025 in Tokyo. Despite the win, he believes that he might be the last human to win this contest as AI keeps improving rapidly. According to the reports in Ars Technia, this contest might been the first time where an AI model competed directly against top human programmers in a major world championship (onsite).
"Humanity has prevailed (for now!) I'm completely exhausted. I figured, I had 10 hours of sleep in the last 3 days and I'm barely alive," wrote Debiak on X (formerly Twitter).
"The results are official now and my lead over AI increased from 5.5 per cent to 9.5 per cent. Honestly, the hype feels kind of bizarre. Never expected so many people would be interested in programming contests. Guess this means I should drop in here more often," he added.
The AtCoder contest featured 11 top human coders based on global rankings and the one AI developed by OpenAI. The AI finished second and was just 9.5 per cent behind Psyho. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman also congratulated Przemyslaw Debiak on the win.
The 10-hour epic challenge involved solving a complex problem like the “travelling salesman problem,” where the goal is to find the shortest route that visits each city once.
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The contest challenged participants to solve one tough optimisation problem within 10 hours. They had to use smart and perfect methods to find the best answers within a tight time limit.
Although Psyho (Przemyslaw Debiak) won the event but the AI system still beat all the other top human coders, who had earned their spots through a year of rankings.
Tech giants like Microsoft and Meta are now using AI to help to write code and in May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that AI might replace 20 per cent of office jobs in the next five years.
