Japanese startup Sakana AI’s artificial intelligence triumphs over programmers at international contest
Artificial intelligence developed by the Japanese startup Sakana AI achieved a groundbreaking victory over 804 programmers from 35 countries at the AtCoder Heuristic Contest 058 (AHC058), solving 98% of the tasks. The event took place during the world’s biggest hackathon, showcasing the expanding capabilities of AI in programming.
Within 48 hours, the AI completed 98 out of 100 given problems, significantly outperforming the best human participants who solved 84%. The average time per task for the AI was just 1.5 minutes, whereas humans required between 3 to 6 hours. Competitors included seasoned developers and top university students worldwide, some with a ranking above 2400 on the Codeforces platform. The tasks involved algorithmic challenges related to optimization, bug detection in code, development of new security protocols, and enhancement of system independence. Notably, one particular problem that the AI solved in 45 seconds had previously been considered very difficult and took months of research to tackle.
This achievement signals a major breakthrough in AI’s role in automating programming, potentially transforming software development methods and accelerating technological innovation.
