Wow! This is exciting. I have speculated that this would be possible. Since I've been learning about databases and dynamic db query optimization, it struck me as surprising that we didn't have similar things for more of our computational universe. Now that this is here, it makes me wonder what else we can optimize in using the same high level techniques.
The more you know about what you want to do ahead of time, the more optimally you can reorder your sequence of steps to give a better-than-naive solution. It makes me think about all software in terms of these abstract computation graphs and makes me wonder what else we can optimize automatically.
Of course, we do absolutely do need a formal model here, so we know what edits are possible, the same way db engines have relational algebra as their backing model. But this whole thing makes me feel like manual software optimization is soon to fall to AI. And I'm thinking that includes good-old-fashion AI first, not second, to LLM's. But I'm sure LLMs would be useful here too, especially for the formalization.
The more you know about what you want to do ahead of time, the more optimally you can reorder your sequence of steps to give a better-than-naive solution. It makes me think about all software in terms of these abstract computation graphs and makes me wonder what else we can optimize automatically.
Of course, we do absolutely do need a formal model here, so we know what edits are possible, the same way db engines have relational algebra as their backing model. But this whole thing makes me feel like manual software optimization is soon to fall to AI. And I'm thinking that includes good-old-fashion AI first, not second, to LLM's. But I'm sure LLMs would be useful here too, especially for the formalization.