Slow Software: The Case for High-latency Systems Development

Systems research prizes efficiency and performance. For the last decade, I’ve worked on ultra-low-latency systems: the goal of Demikernel and its related nanosecond-scale systems (e.g., Cornflakes, Capybara) is to do more with fewer cycles. AI coding has brought the same level of efficiency to building systems, letting fewer programmers write more code. However, it has … Read more

Can LLMs model real-world systems in TLA+? 

Editors’ note: AI has been actively pushing the frontier of applied formal methods for computing systems. In this article, the Specula team wrote about their experience of evaluating LLMs on modeling system code, the basic capability for agentic model checking, using TLA+, a specification language for concurrent and distributed systems. The article is the 7th … Read more

The Long Game: How Agents That Remember Resolve Operational Issues Faster

Editors’ note: Self-Defining Systems is a new paradigm and a new research initiative at the University of Washington with the goal of leveraging the unique abilities of LLMs to accelerate infrastructure agility, while compensating and masking their weaknesses. It envisions a future in which infrastructure can design, validate, and evolve itself with minimal human intervention. … Read more

LDOS: Toward A Learning-Directed Operating System

Editors’ note: LDOS (Learning Directed Operating System) is among the most exciting expedition projects that showcase how AI could help revamp policies and mechanisms of modern operating systems (arguably the most important systems software). In this article (the fifth blog in The Next Horizon of System Intelligence series), the LDOS team shares their vision, roadmap, and … Read more