Large language models can generate executable programs, which makes it possible to search directly over procedural content generators rather than individual levels. We study this approach in Sokoban, Zelda, Dangerous Dave, and Lode Runner. Each run evolves complete Python generators through language-model mutation and crossover. We introduce Continual Abstraction Discovery, or CAD, which extracts reusable primitives from high-fitness programs into a run-specific helper module. A 2x2 experiment crosses CAD with access to a fixed hand-written domain API. The completed data set contains 160 complete runs, with at least ten 50-generation runs in every cell. CAD raises mean final best fitness in all eight domain and API comparisons. Across all CAD runs, learned libraries are adopted by most later programs and repeatedly rediscover validation, reachability, and structural utilities. These results support that discovering reusable primitives improves evolutionary program search for content generators.
This work proposes a hybrid framework that integrates Large Language Models into GP in two complementary roles: as a semantic mutation operator that proposes non-local program rewrites during evolution, and as a post-evolution repair that iteratively refines single failed programs after search terminates.
Woletemaryam Liyew, Dojun Oh, Seokki Lee et al.· Proceedings of the Genetic a...· 0 citations
Differential compiler testing requires automatically generated programs that are not only diverse and bug-revealing, but also semantically well-defined and reproducible. Rule-based generators provide strong validity guarantees but offer limited control over semantic variation, while large language models (LLMs) can syn...
Lang Hong Nguyet Anh, Ho Viet Duc Luong, Vu Van An· Annual Conference on Genetic...· 0 citations
Reducing bug-triggering programs to their minimal essential form is a fundamental task in debugging language processors such as compilers and interpreters. Existing reduction techniques are limited by their reliance on predefined, syntax-driven transformations that lack semantic understanding of the target program, and...
Xintong Zhou, Hongxu Xu, Chun-Feng Liao et al.· 0 citations
Large language models (LLMs) have improved automated program repair (APR), but two limitations remain. First, raw execution traces are often too large and repetitive to serve as effective model context. Second, repeated patch sampling may produce different implementations without yielding distinct root-cause hypotheses...
Combinatorial problems appear in numerous industrial applications. A common approach is to formulate these problems as declarative constraint models that can subsequently be compiled to and solved by a range of back-end solvers. Recent work shows that Large Language Models (LLMs) can produce correct models from natural...
EvoMem is introduced, a persistent memory architecture for LLM-based evolutionary program search that captures and reuses candidate mutation knowledge and provides evidence that persistent memory can reduce some redundant exploration and improve the reuse and adaptation of successful strategies in LLM-driven evolutiona...
Viktor Volkov, Valentin Khrulkov, Andrey V. Galichin et al.· 0 citations
Related blog posts
MIT News · Artificial Intelligence· news.mit.eduOct 13, 2026
Machine-learning networks can learn without detailed instructions from a designer. Those that do may offer insight into how the brain reorganizes itself during learning.
MIT News · Artificial Intelligence· news.mit.eduSep 29, 2026
Professor Sherry Turkle’s new book, “Artificial Intimacy,” offers a withering critique of chatbots and the antisocial dynamics she believes they encourage.