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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

#81

Post by raydiak »

The way I read that, I think they're saying hardware acceleration of specific algorithms can be 100 times faster and more efficient than the same algorithm in software on a general purpose processor, and since automated chip design has proven to be a difficult problem space, maybe we should try applying AI there so we can have a lower bar to specialized hardware accelerators for various tasks.

I do not think they mean to say that an AI would be 100 times better at designing chips than a human, I assume this is the engineering tradeoff they refer to. Though I wouldn't fault anyone for being confused, as the wording is painfully awkward and salesy.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#82

Post by marcosdumay »

majormajor wrote: post #58
ajuc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

LLMs are pretty damn useful for generating tests, getting rid of a lot of tedium, but yeah, it's the same as human-written tests: if you don't check that your test doesn't work when it shouldn't (not the same thing as just writing a second test for that case - both those tests need to fail if you intentionally screw with their separate fixtures), then you shouldn't have too much confidence in your test.

If LLMs can generate a test for you, it's because it's a test that you shouldn't need to write. They can't test what is really important, at all.

Some development stacks are extremely underpowered for code verification, so they do patch the design issue. Just like some stacks are underpowered for abstraction and need patching by code generation. Both of those solve an immediate problem, in a haphazard and error-prone way, by adding burden on maintenance and code evolution linearly to how much you use it.

And worse, if you rely too much on them they will lead your software architecture and make that burden superlinear.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#83

Post by rsynnott »

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...

It really feels like we’re close to the end of the current bubble now; the applications being trotted out are just increasingly absurd.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#84

Post by FredPret »

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.

This happens all the time.

Once it was spices. Then poppies. Modern art. The .com craze. Those blockchain ape images. Blockchain. Now LLM.

All of these had a bit of true value and a whole load of bullshit. Eventually the bullshit disappears and the core remains, and the world goes nuts about the next thing.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#85

Post by rsynnott »

ajuc wrote: post #32
marcosdumay wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, define ‘better’. Even with actual human programmers, tests which do not in fact test the thing are already a bit of an epidemic. A test which doesn’t test is worse than useless.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#86

Post by bubaumba »

alain94040 wrote: post #4

I agree with most of the technical points of the article. But there may still be value in YC calling for innovation in that space. The article is correctly showing that there is no easy win in applying LLMs to chip design. Either the market for a given application is too small, then LLMs can help but who cares, or the chip is too important, in which case you'd rather use the best engineers. Unlike software, we're not…

> But if there was an obvious path forward

Even obvious can be risky. First it's nice to share the risk, second more investments come with more connections.

As for LLMs boom. I think finally we'll realize that LLM with algorithms can do much more than just LLM. 'algorithms' is probably a bad word here, I mean assisting tools like databases, algorithms, other models. Then only access API can be trained into LLM instead of the whole dataset for example.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#87

Post by namaria »

deadbabe wrote: post #69
Mistletoe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's after this? Because I really do feel the economy is standing on a cliff right now. I don't see anything after this that can prop stocks up.

The post-quantum age. Companies will go post-quantum.

I think the operators are learning how to hype-edge. You find that sweet spot between promising and 'not just there yet' where you can take lots of investments and iterate forward just enough to keep it going.

It doesn't matter if it can't actually 'get there' as long as people still believe it can.

Come to think about it, a socioeconomic system dependent on population and economic growth is at a fundamental level driven by this balancing act: "We can solve every problem if we just forge ahead and keep enlarging the base of the pyramid - keep reproducing, keep investing, keep expanding the infrastructure".

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#88

Post by rsynnott »

ksynwa wrote: post #67
ReptileMan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly because the marginal cost of microwaves was not close to zero.

Mostly because they were not making claims that sentient microwaves that would cook your food for you were just around the corner which then the most respected media outlets parroted uncritically.

I mean, they were at one point making pretty extravagant claims about microwaves, but to a less credulous audience. Trouble with LLMs is that they look like magic if you don’t look too hard, particularly to laypeople. It’s far easier to buy into a narrative that they actually _are_ magic, or will become so.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#89

Post by rsynnott »

brookst wrote: post #28
DeathArrow wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Do we know what LLMs will be able to do in the future? And even if we know, the startups have to work with what they have now, until that future comes. The article states that there's not much to work with.

Show me a successful startup that was predicated on the tech they’re working with not advancing?

Most successful startups were able to make the thing that they wanted to make, as a startup, with existing tech. It might have a limited market that was expected to become less limited (a web app in 1996, say), but it was possible to make the thing.

This idea of “we’re a startup; we can’t actually make anything useful now, but once the tech we use becomes magic any day now we might be able to make something!” is basically a new phenomenon.

Re: YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

#90

Post by namaria »

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

When did OpenMicroWave promise to solve every societal problem if we just gave it enough money to built a larger microwave oven?
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