Human Coder Beats AI In Epic 10-Hour Showdown: 'Humanity Prevails, For Now'

Machines might not be able to dominate humans despite the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) -- at least yet, after a Polish programmer defeated an OpenAI model in a head-to-head coding competition. Programmer Przemyslaw Debiak, better known as Psycho, emerged victorious after a 10-hour marathon coding stint at the AtCoder World Tour Finals 2025 Heuristic contest in Tokyo.

The contest might have been the first time where an AI model competed directly against top human programmers in a major onsite world championship, according to a report in Arstechnia. Having already competed in several events prior to the big showdown against AI, Debiak, a former OpenAI employee, managed to coast to victory despite being 'completely exhausted'.

"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 competition required the contestants to solve a single complex optimisation problem over 10 hours. The solution lies in using clever, often imperfect strategies to reach the best possible solutions within strict time constraints.

While Debiak may have emerged as the winner, the AI model still managed to outperform the remaining elite human programmers, who had each qualified for the competition through year-long rankings.

See the post here:

Humanity has prevailed (for now!)

I'm completely exhausted. I figured, I had 10h of sleep in the last 3 days and I'm barely alive.

I'll post more about the contest when I get some rest.

(To be clear, those are provisional results, but my lead should be big enough) pic.twitter.com/fIMo0ifNCd

— Psyho (@FakePsyho) July 16, 2025

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"Last human to defeat AI?"

Social media users congratulated Debiak on his victory and asked him to share the solution which helped him upstage the AI model.

"Congrats! Looking forward to your analysis on the solutions if you get time," said one user, while another added: "This is much more interesting than basketball, tennis or even chess championships."

A third commented: "You are likely one of the last humans to defeat an AI in a programming contest. This is a huge deal for humanity as a whole, even those who don't care about programming contests."

With experts predicting that AI models will reach human-level consciousness, more popularly known as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), in the next few years, Debiak's victory could perhaps be the last few instances where humans are able to beat the machines.