Metaheuristics and Large Language Models Join Forces: Toward an Integrated Optimization Approach

Since the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) a couple of years ago, researchers in metaheuristics (MHs) have wondered how to use their power in a beneficial way within their algorithms. This paper introduces a novel approach that leverages LLMs as pattern recognition tools to improve MHs. The resu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Camilo Chacon Sartori, Christian Blum, Filippo Bistaffa, Guillem Rodriguez Corominas
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
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Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10818476/
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Summary:Since the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) a couple of years ago, researchers in metaheuristics (MHs) have wondered how to use their power in a beneficial way within their algorithms. This paper introduces a novel approach that leverages LLMs as pattern recognition tools to improve MHs. The resulting hybrid method, tested in the context of a social network-based combinatorial optimization problem, outperforms existing state-of-the-art approaches that combine machine learning with MHs regarding the obtained solution quality. By carefully designing prompts, we demonstrate that the output obtained from LLMs can be used as problem knowledge, leading to improved results. Lastly, we acknowledge LLMs&#x2019; potential drawbacks and limitations and consider it essential to examine them to advance this type of research further. Our method can be reproduced using a tool available at: <uri>https://github.com/camilochs/optipattern</uri>.
ISSN:2169-3536