A human competitor operating under the handle “FakePsyho” claimed first place in the heuristic division of the AtCoder World Finals on 16 July, edging out an artificial-intelligence system fielded by OpenAI that had led much of the day. The victory came after a tense final 80-minute stretch during which the lead changed hands several times before the human entrant posted the top optimisation score. OpenAI’s program finished second among a dozen world-class finalists who were given a single, open-ended optimisation problem. Observers noted that only one human surpassed the Silicon Valley laboratory’s model, underscoring the narrowing performance gap between elite programmers and state-of-the-art AI systems. Competition organisers said the algorithm division of the World Finals will begin at noon local time, with the same field competing in a series of shorter, exact-answer problems to determine the overall champion.