If we're looking to optimize well-understood algorithms, like sorting functions, ... So, they had to work backward and figure out the C++ code that would produce the same assembly.

The existing C++ algorithm for sorting a list of five items took around 6.91 nanoseconds on a typical Intel Skylake chip. AlphaDev’s took 2.01 nanoseconds, around 70% faster. Related Story ...

An artificial intelligence (AI) system based on Google DeepMind’s AlphaZero AI created algorithms that, when translated into the standard programming language C++, can sort data up to three ...

For a programming language such as C++, a program called a compiler takes source code and converts it into a set of ‘assembly’ instructions that are, in turn, translated into machine-level code.