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YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

zach.be

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Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#31

Post by layer8 »

childintime wrote: post #20
klabb3 wrote: post #10

I don’t mind LLMs in the ideation and learning phases, which aren’t reproducible anyway. But I still find it hard to believe engineers of all people are eager to put a slow, expensive, non-deterministic black box right at the core of extremely complex systems that need to be reliable, inspectable, understandable…

You mean, like humans have been for many decades now. Edit: I believe that LLM's are eminently useful to replace experts (of all people) 90% of the time.

People believed that about expert systems in the 1980s as well.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#32

Post by ajuc »

marcosdumay wrote: post #16
fsndz wrote: post #9

They want to throw LLMs at everything even if it does not make sense. Same is true for all the AI agent craze: https://medium.com/thoughts-on-machine-learning/langchains-s...

If feels like the entire world has gone crazy. Even the serious idea that the article thinks could work is throwing the unreliable LLMs at verification ! If there's any place you can use something that doesn't work most of the time, I guess it's there.

It's similar in regular programming - LLMs are better at writing test code than actual code. Mostly because it's simpler (P vs NP etc), but I think also because it's less obvious when test code doesn't work.

Replace all asserts with expected ==expected and most people won't notice.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#33

Post by beepbooptheory »

brookst wrote: post #24
klabb3 wrote: post #10

I don’t mind LLMs in the ideation and learning phases, which aren’t reproducible anyway. But I still find it hard to believe engineers of all people are eager to put a slow, expensive, non-deterministic black box right at the core of extremely complex systems that need to be reliable, inspectable, understandable…

You find it hard to believe that non-deterministic black boxes at the core of complex systems are eager to put non-deterministic black boxes at the core of complex systems?

Can you actually like follow through with this line? I know there are literally tens of thousands of comments just like this at this point, but if you have chance, could you explain what you think this means? What should we take from it? Just unpack it a little bit for us.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#34

Post by westurner »

IDK about LLMs there either.

A non-LLM monte carlo AI approach: "Pushing the Limits of Machine Design: Automated CPU Design with AI" (2023) https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.12456 .. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36565671

A useful target for whichever approach is most efficient at IP-feasible design:

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41322134 :

> "Ask HN: How much would it cost to build a RISC CPU out of carbon?" (2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41153490

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#35

Post by xbmcuser »

fsndz wrote: post #9

They want to throw LLMs at everything even if it does not make sense. Same is true for all the AI agent craze: https://medium.com/thoughts-on-machine-learning/langchains-s...

yes thats how we progress this is how the internet boom happened as well everything became . com then the real workable businesses were left and all the unworkable things were gone.

Recently I came across some one advertising an LLM to generate fashion magazine shoot in Pakistan at 20-25% of the cost. It hit me then that they are undercutting the fashion shoot of country like Pakistan which is already cheaper by 90-95% from most western countries. This AI is replacing the work of 10-20 people.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#37

Post by dangsux »

ReptileMan wrote: post #26
fsndz wrote: post #9

They want to throw LLMs at everything even if it does not make sense. Same is true for all the AI agent craze: https://medium.com/thoughts-on-machine-learning/langchains-s...

Isn't that the case with every new tech. There was a time in which people tried to cook everything in a microwave

[dead]

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#38

Post by dangsux »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #33
brookst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You find it hard to believe that non-deterministic black boxes at the core of complex systems are eager to put non-deterministic black boxes at the core of complex systems?

Can you actually like follow through with this line? I know there are literally tens of thousands of comments just like this at this point, but if you have chance, could you explain what you think this means? What should we take from it? Just unpack it a little bit for us.

[dead]

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#39

Post by layer8 »

EgoIncarnate wrote: post #7

The article seems to be be based on the current limitations of LLMs. I don't think YC and other VCs are betting on what LLMs can do today, I think they are betting on what they might be able to do in the future. As we've seen in the recent past, it's difficult to predict what the possibilities are for LLMS and what limitations will hold. Currently it seems pure scaling won't be enough, but I don't think we've reached…

You could replace “LLM” in your comment with lots of other technologies. Why bet on LLMs in particular to escape their limitations in the near term?

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#40

Post by wslh »

fsndz wrote: post #9

They want to throw LLMs at everything even if it does not make sense. Same is true for all the AI agent craze: https://medium.com/thoughts-on-machine-learning/langchains-s...

This makes complete sense from an investor’s perspective, as it increases the chances of a successful exit. While we focus on the technical merits or critique here on HN/YC, investors are playing a completely different game.

To be a bit acerbic, and inspired by Arthur C. Clarke, I might say: "Any sufficiently complex business could be indistinguishable from Theranos".

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