←back to thread

YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design

(www.zach.be)
317 points laserduck | 3 comments | 16 Nov 24 14:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.212s | source
Show context
myflash13 ◴[18 Nov 24 12:11 UTC] No.42171710[source]▶
Anything that requires deep “understanding” or novel invention is not a job for a statistical word regurgitator. I’ve yet to see a single example, in any field, of an LLM actually inventing something truly novel (as judged by the experts in that space). Where LLMs shine is in producing boilerplate -- though that is super useful. So far I have yet to see anything resembling an original “thought” from an LLM (and I use AI at work every day).
replies(3): >>42172675 #>>42176079 #>>42177501 #
1. myflash13 ◴[18 Nov 24 14:42 UTC] No.42172675[source]▶
Experiment: you think LLMs can innovate on chip design? Ask it to do something much simpler: invent a new better sorting algorithm. We use names such as Timsort or Djikstra for a specific reason: because it requires rare human ingenuity to invent such things. If an LLM can’t invent a new sorting algorithm that is meaningfully better in some way than existing known algorithms, then good luck on something much harder like chip design.
replies(2): >>42172747 #>>42174505 #
2. klabb3 ◴[18 Nov 24 14:47 UTC] No.42172747[source]▶
You can set the bar lower. Have it invent another n log n sorting algorithm. Or omit all merge sort implementations from training data and see if it can re-invent it.

But I certainly agree in general. It’s been years and there are still no independent novel discoveries afaik.

3. devoutsalsa ◴[18 Nov 24 17:14 UTC] No.42174505[source]▶
As long as the chip isn’t expected to count the number of Rs in strawberry, I don’t see why an LLM couldn’t design a better chip.