At the 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.
Update: I'm alive and well
— Psyho (@FakePsyho) July 17, 2025
The results are official now and my lead over AI increased from 5.5% to 9.5%😎
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👀 pic.twitter.com/RsLD8lECNq
— Psyho (@FakePsyho) 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 criteria.
Spanning 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 the 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 Business Insider over a video call on Friday. “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.
Regarded as one of the most prestigious events in the world of competitive programming, the AtCoder World Tour Finals brings together just 12 elite coders from around the globe—selected based on their exceptional performance over the prior year.
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.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised him:
Following his recent victory, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised him on X (formerly Twitter), posting: “Good job Psyho.”
good job psyho https://t.co/CDPUOaF9qn
— Sam Altman (@sama) July 16, 2025
