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> the tired meme of "the compiler generates better assembly code than a human"

This seems incomplete. Which human? The average software developer? That doesn't say much. Few developers have the necessary expertise. Expert assembly programmers are often able to outperform compilers.

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Better wouldn’t necessarily be the right qualifier, but faster, typically more repeatable, and greatly more economical with scale/workload would certainly fit as better from different vantages.

With high novelty? Probably not until machine learning and compilers are deeply entangled.

That very much depends on the code. Program synthesis is an active area of research and the programs found would often be very difficult for a human to figure out. Of course a sufficiently determined human can always do whatever these programs do, but I do think it is unfair to give an unlimited amount of time to human optimizers.

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