Large language models (LLMs) enable neural architecture search (NAS) directly over executable neural network programs. However, code-level flexibility does not provide the architecture state needed for effective mutation: LLMs must infer tensor dependencies, editable components, and compatibility constraints from implementation details. To address this representation mismatch, we propose GraphIR, an architecture-aware intermediate representation that supplements executable programs with a mutation-aligned candidate state. GraphIR organizes each candidate through three complementary views: a computation skeleton describing tensor flow, a mutation surface exposing editable modules and operations, and a validity envelope capturing interface contracts, propagated shapes, and downstream dependencies. To evaluate our method, we construct NAS-Dependency, a 120-question benchmark covering six complementary dependency-reasoning dimensions. The diagnostic shows that GraphIR is particularly effective at identifying exact producer occurrences, tracing dependency propagation, and diagnosing interface and failure risks. Across six downstream benchmarks including CLRS, GraphIR achieves the best overall search performance while maintaining comparable model size and favorable end-to-end NAS efficiency when integrated into OpenEvolve. These results show that a mutation-oriented architecture state provides an effective interface between executable neural programs and LLM-guided architecture evolution.
Ivan Sviridov, Artem Oskin, Ivan Panin +4cs.CL cs.NE
Adapting large language models (LLMs) to clinical workflows often requires costly fine-tuning or manual prompt and pipeline engineering. We study LLM-guided MAP-Elites evolution as an inference-time alternative for discovering medical decision strategies and provide an implementation repository at https://github.com/univanxx/llm_guided_evo_medical. We formulate urgency triage, interactive consultation, and medical image classification as evolutionary searches over executable artifacts optimized by task-specific fitness functions. Across all three settings, evolution improves over manually designed baselines under practical constraints. In triage, evolved programs increase Semigran accuracy from $77.3\%$ to $87.1\%$ and emergency recall from $0.60$ to $0.97$, while improving safety-weighted held-out MIMIC-ESI performance. In interactive consultation, evolved policies improve the accuracy--cost frontier across Llama-3, Qwen-3.5, and Gemma-4 and transfer to held-out iCRAFTMD. In PneumoniaMNIST, prompt-only evolution improves frozen MedGemma VLMs while preserving strict JSON outputs. Qualitative analysis shows that the gains come from interpretable program-level mechanisms, calibrated triage boundaries, targeted evidence acquisition, selective commitment, and finding-oriented visual decision rules, rather than superficial prompt rewording alone.