One Programmer Outshines OpenAIs AI at Prestigious Coding Competition

The model OpenAIAHC, developed by OpenAI, claimed the second position in the recent AtCoder World Tour Finals 2025 held in Tokyo, specifically in the heuristic section. This competition featured 12 of the world’s top programmers, selected based on the results of the 2024 contests, along with an AI contender. OpenAIAHC achieved a score of 42 billion points, falling short by 9.5% from the winner, Michal «Psycho» Saniowski from Poland.

Michal praised OpenAIAHC’s performance, stating on X that «this is a victory for humanity (for now)!» He mentioned that the competition was extremely exhausting—over the final three days, he slept only 10 hours. He utilized VS Code with basic auto-completion features.

OpenAIAHC’s performance astonished commentators, as no AI had previously competed so successfully in a prestigious tournament. The finals lasted for 10 hours, and for a substantial portion of the time, the AI was in the lead, demonstrating its capability to quickly prototype solutions. However, the model’s weakness was its lack of creativity, as more original solutions enabled Michal to ultimately secure first place. This underscores the notion that AI currently serves primarily as an assistant, with the most innovative solutions still the domain of human programmers.

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has already congratulated the winner. Michal remarked that while he is glad to return to relaxation, he now feels like «the last line of defense.»

P.S. You can support me by subscribing to the channel «the runaway neural network«, where I discuss AI from a creative perspective.