Humans are Still Better than ChatGPT: Case of the IEEEXtreme Competition
Anis Koubaa Basit Qureshi Adel Ammar Zahid Khan Wadii Boulila Lahouari Ghouti
Since the release of ChatGPT, numerous studies have highlighted the
remarkable performance of ChatGPT, which often rivals or even surpasses human
capabilities in various tasks and domains. However, this paper presents a
contrasting perspective by demonstrating an instance where human performance
excels in typical tasks suited for ChatGPT, specifically in the domain of
computer programming. We utilize the IEEExtreme Challenge competition as a
benchmark, a prestigious, annual international programming contest encompassing
a wide range of problems with different complexities. To conduct a thorough
evaluation, we selected and executed a diverse set of 102 challenges, drawn
from five distinct IEEExtreme editions, using three major programming
languages: Python, Java, and C++. Our empirical analysis provides evidence that
contrary to popular belief, human programmers maintain a competitive edge over
ChatGPT in certain aspects of problem-solving within the programming context.
In fact, we found that the average score obtained by ChatGPT on the set of
IEEExtreme programming problems is 3.9 to 5.8 times lower than the average
human score, depending on the programming language. This paper elaborates on
these findings, offering critical insights into the limitations and potential
areas of improvement for AI-based language models like ChatGPT.