Technology 7/20: Humans beat AI in world programming championship

Tech company CEO resigns after controversy at Coldplay concert

Andy Byron, CEO of technology company Astronomer Inc., has resigned after a video of an intimate moment between him and a colleague at a Coldplay concert at Gillette Stadium went viral on social media.

Coldplay's Kiss Cam accidentally captured controversial images (Source: Yahoo)

Earlier, while Coldplay projected images of the audience onto the Jumbotron, a short video clip showed Byron hugging a woman – believed to be the company’s human resources director. When they realized they were being filmed, both quickly moved out of the frame, embarrassed.

Following a strong backlash from the community, Astronomer Inc. announced that Andy Byron had been suspended and placed under internal investigation before he officially resigned. Co-founder Pete DeJoy was appointed interim CEO.

China hosts AI competition

On the morning of July 19, in Guangxi, China, the “AI Capacity-Building Action for All Cup” – AAA Cup competition officially launched on an international scale, for organizations, technology companies, startups and individual programmers from China and ASEAN.

AAA Cup aims to promote the integration of AI with the real economy , connect creative resources and bring AI products into areas such as smart agriculture, urbanization and disaster warning.

The organizers said awards such as “Potential Enterprise” and “Technology Unicorn towards ASEAN” will be given to outstanding projects with the potential to be applied in the regional market.

According to Professor Wen Yonggang from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, the competition will attract research groups and innovative enterprises to form regional alliances on AI, promoting closer technological cooperation between China and ASEAN.

Humans Beat AI in World Programming Championship

Polish programmer Przemysław Dębiak (nicknamed “Psyho”) defeated an AI model from OpenAI at the AtCoder World Tour Finals – Heuristic Contest, held in Tokyo, Japan.

The competition lasted 10 hours straight and required solving an extremely complex optimization problem. This was the first time an AI model had competed directly against humans at the top programming competition. Although the AI did not need to rest, Dębiak – a former OpenAI employee – managed to beat the AI model by about 9.5%.

Przemyslaw Debiak (right) receives the award after defeating AI (Source: Arstechnica)

After the victory, Dębiak shared on social network X: “ Humanity has won (temporarily). I am exhausted… but still alive.”

Dębiak’s victory recalls the legend of John Henry, the blacksmith who defeated a steam drill but died of exhaustion. While the victory is symbolic, Dębiak himself acknowledged that AI is advancing rapidly, and “humans may not always win.”

According to Stanford's AI Index 2025 Report, the rate of AI solving programming problems has increased from 4.4% (2023) to 71.7% (2024). More than 90% of programmers use AI tools like GitHub Copilot.

Minh Hoan

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/cong-nghe-20-7-con-nguoi-danh-bai-ai-trong-giai-vo-dich-lap-trinh-the-gioi-ar955287.html