It's a system based on LLMs.
> AlphaEvolve, an evolutionary coding agent powered by large language models for general-purpose algorithm discovery and optimization. AlphaEvolve pairs the creative problem-solving capabilities of our Gemini models with automated evaluators that verify answers, and uses an evolutionary framework to improve upon the most promising ideas.
> AlphaEvolve leverages an ensemble of state-of-the-art large language models: our fastest and most efficient model, Gemini Flash, maximizes the breadth of ideas explored, while our most powerful model, Gemini Pro, provides critical depth with insightful suggestions. Together, these models propose computer programs that implement algorithmic solutions as code.
What you said is:
> First, remember when we had LLMs run optimisation passes last year? Alphaevolve doing square packing
First, remember the fish intelligence competition last year? Rossie jumped through a hula hoop.
Alpha Evolve is made from LLMs, but it's not the only part. If anything, it needs a genetic algo component. LLMs generally don't evolve.
Also, why are you focusing on AlphaEvolve? I made two other points you haven't addressed.
Second, I question your idea of what Alpha Evolve is. You seem to think it's an LLM or LLM-adjacent when it's more like an evolutionary algo picking a better seed among the LLMs. That's not an LLM, if anything, it has some ability to correct itself.
Second depends. If you told them to pretrain for writing C compiler however long it takes, I could see a smaller team doing it in a week or two. Keep in mind LLMs pretrain on all OSS including GCC.
> Meanwhile, at every step of the way these things become better and better.
Will they? Or do they just ingest more data and compute?[1] Again, time will tell. But to me this seems more like speed-running into an Idiocracy scenario than a revolution.[2]
I think this will turn out another driverless car situation where last 1% needs 99% of the time. And while it might happen eventually it's going to take extremely long time.
[1] Because we don't have much more computing jumps left, nor will future data be as clean as now.
[2] Why idiocracy?
Because they are polluting their own corpus of data. And by replacing thinking about computers, there will be no one to really stop them.
We'll equalize the human and computer knowledge by making humans less knowledgeable rather than more.
So you end up in an Idiocracy-like scenario where a doctor can't diagnose you, nor can the machine because it was dumbed down by each successive generation, until it resembles a child's toy.