Many existing sorting algorithms use instructions that AlphaDev did not try, he says. This makes it harder to compare AlphaDev with the best rival approaches. It’s true that AlphaDev has its limits.

AlphaDev was able to shave an instruction off of sort-3, sort-5, and sort-8, and even more off of sort-6 and sort-7. There was only one (sort-4) where it didn't find a way to improve the human code.