The algorithm addresses something called the library sorting problem (more formally, the “list labeling” problem). The challenge is to devise a strategy for organizing books in some kind of sorted ...

The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less than a page-width away from the theoretical ideal.

When asked to create a sorting algorithm, AlphaDev came up with one that was 70 per cent faster than the best for lists of five pieces of data and 1.7 per cent faster for lists of over 250,000 items.