One Layer Deeper draws 15,000 submissions, none solved as intended

marksaroufim · x · 2026-09-13

The One Layer Deeper challenge received over 15,000 submissions and nobody solved it as intended. Varun Neal learned along the way that backprop can factor small semiprimes — contrary to the problem's design. Mark Saroufim notes the most interesting ideas involved learning reusable operations and composing them into deeper computations.

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