LLMatic: Neural Architecture Search via Large Language Models and Quality Diversity Optimization

we propose using the coding abilities of LLMs to introduce meaningful variations to code defining neural networks. Meanwhile, Quality-Diversity (QD) algorithms are known to discover diverse and robust solutions. By merging the code-generating abilities of LLMs with the diversity and robustness of QD solutions, we introduce LLMatic, a Neural Architecture Search (NAS) algorithm. While LLMs struggle to conduct NAS directly through prompts, LLMatic uses a procedural approach, leveraging QD for prompts and network architecture to create diverse and high-performing networks. We test LLMatic on the CIFAR-10 and NAS-bench-201 benchmarks, demonstrating that it can produce competitive networks while evaluating just 2, 000 candidates, even without prior knowledge of the benchmark domain or exposure to any previous top-performing models for the benchmark