alt Hacker NewsSmall anecdote:
In the IEEEXTREME university programming competition there are ~10k participating teams.
Our university has a quite strong Competitive Programming program and the best teams usually rank in the top 100. Last year a team ranked 30 and it's wasn't even our strongest team (which didn't participate)
This year none of our teams was able to get in the top 1000. I would estimate close to 99% of the teams in the Top 1000 were using LLMs.
Last year they didn't seem to help much, but this year they rendered the competition pointless.
I've read blogs/seen videos of people who got in the AOC global leaderboard last year without using LLMs, but I think this year it wouldn't be possible at all.
Replies
In 1997, Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov, the world chess champion. Today, chess grandmasters stand no chance against Stockfish, a chess engine that can run on a cheap phone. Yet chess remains super popular and competitive today, and while there are occasional scandals, cheating seems to be mostly prevented.
I don’t see why competitive debate or programming would be different. (But I understand why a fair global leaderboard for AOC is no longer feasible).
When I did competitions like these at uni (~10-15 years ago), we all used some thin-clients in the computer lab where the only webpages one could access were those allowed by the competition (mainly the submission portal). And then some admin/organizers would feed us and make sure people didn't cheat. Maybe we need to get back to that setup, heh.
Oof. I had a great time cracking the top 100 of Advent of Code back in 2020. Bittersweet to know that I got in while it was still a fun challenge for humans.
Man, those people using LLMs in competitive programming ... where's the fun in that? I don't get people for whom it's just about winning, I wish everyone would just have some basic form of dignity and respect.