Shorter and faster than Sort3AlphaDev
Data Structures and Algorithms
2023-07-28 v1
Abstract
Arising from: Mankowitz, D.J., Michi, A., Zhernov, A. et al. Faster sorting algorithms discovered using deep reinforcement learning.Nature 618, 257-263 (2023). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06004-9. The article cited above presents new implementations of sorting algorithms found through deep reinforcement learning that work on a small number of numeric inputs. For 3 numbers, the published implementation contains 17 assembly instructions, and the authors state that no shorter program exists. This note presents two counterexamples for this claim and a straightforward C/C++ implementation that is faster than theirs.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2307.14503,
title = {Shorter and faster than Sort3AlphaDev},
author = {Cassio Neri},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.14503},
year = {2023}
}