In evolutionary algorithms powered by language models, the LLM acts as a single operator that simultaneously updates structural components (like control flow) and continuous parameters. While LLMs can be good at the first, they are not efficient at the second, wasting tokens taking discrete jumps inside a trial and error loop. We resolve this by formalizing a hybrid nested search, in which an outer loop has the LLM propose a structural sketch, with numeric gaps, and an inner numerical optimizer tunes the sketch. Both the outer and inner solvers are pluggable: any text-based optimizer can be combined with a zero-order optimizer (CMA-ES), gradient-based routines, or MCMC samplers. We validate our framework across three scientific domains: (i) meta-optimizers on closed-form test functions, (ii) code-based policies for systems research and social dilemmas; and (iii) approximate Bayesian inference tasks. Across all three, the hybrid optimizer is superior to both vanilla LLM-driven search and pure numerical optimization baselines. Code at: https://github.com/vicgalle/hybrid-nested-search
The rapid development of the Internet of Everything (IoE) is accelerating the adoption of intelligent applications. However, the massive number of connected devices generates diverse and heterogeneous tasks, which pose increasing challenges for dynamic resource scheduling in IoE environments. Using their superior semantic understanding and reasoning capabilities, Large Artificial Intelligence Models (LAIMs) demonstrate significant potential to handle complex scheduling scenarios and improve resource utilization efficiency. This paper investigates a task-oriented LAIM-driven resource scheduling mechanism, which constructs a multidimensional scheduling decision model by integrating task semantics, network states, and constraint conditions. Furthermore, a task-oriented prompt generation method is designed to establish a deep association between task requirements and network state. In the proposed resource allocation scheme, an external evaluation and feedback module is incorporated to conduct real-time feasibility verification and performance evaluation of scheduling strategies, thus enhancing the robustness and adaptability of scheduling. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed Large Language Model (LLM)-driven network architecture and resource allocation scheme achieve significant improvements in convergence speed, processing latency, and energy consumption, effectively enhancing IoE task responsiveness and resource utilization.
Shaghayegh Fazliani, Krissh Chawla, Jack Guo +3cs.LG
Rapid progress in aerodynamic shape optimization (ASO) has outpaced currently-available standardized evaluation frameworks. Fair comparison requires a unified benchmark spanning diverse shape classes, objective formulations, and matched-budget state-of-the-art baselines. We introduce ShapeBench, an open-source ASO benchmark with a unified API spanning 103 tasks across eight shape categories and multiple optimization regimes. Each ShapeBench task includes a validated surrogate for fast search; when feasible, a high-fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) pipeline for final verification is available, enabling systematic fidelity-gap analysis. ShapeBench provides a reproducible protocol with well-configured baselines to compare fairly using a consistent budget metric, allowing for comparison among both classical and LLM-driven methods, including general-purpose optimizers and a new domain-specialized evolutionary LLM baseline, ShapeEvolve. Results on ShapeBench demonstrate substantial variance in optimizer rankings across shape categories and problem formulations, with mean pairwise Spearman $ρ= 0.013$, so single-task conclusions do not reliably generalize across problem classes. The benchmark is also far from saturation; classical methods are rarely applicable across all shape categories and tasks, further highlighting the need for more general-purpose approaches.