When LLMs Stop Talking and Start Choosing Algorithms
Warehouse. That is a useful place to begin, because combinatorial optimization only sounds abstract until someone has to decide which trucks leave first, which jobs enter which machines, which items fit into which containers, or which solver should be trusted before the deadline starts laughing. In those systems, the hardest question is often not “What is the answer?” It is “Which method should we use for this particular instance?” One algorithm works beautifully on one family of cases and then quietly embarrasses itself on another. This is not a personality flaw. It is the normal condition of optimization. ...