The Analog Thing: Analog Computing for the Future

It's a cute toy and a fun educational tool, but "computing for the future" seems like a bit of an overstatement.

I think they're saying analog computers could be the future of computing.

Veritasium explains it really well in general here (and demos the device) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVsUOuSjvcg

I don't see it. Any non trivial analog computation involves a very large circuit, which has the problems of normal programming (bugs) and graphic programming (write-only), but with the extra pitfalls of electronics (resistance, delay, the resulting oscillations). And then you have to read all the outputs. That's going to be slow and expensive to build.

In what concrete problems do you (or Veritasium) think analog computing could beat a GPU?

It’s been making a comeback in CV and ML. It’s ridiculously low latency and cheap.

It’s unlikely to replace digital computers, but it might find a new specialized home in components.

> In what concrete problems do you (or Veritasium) think analog computing could beat a GPU?

Solving (systems of) ODEs without the issues that can arise from numerical solving like numerical instability. Oh and it does that instantaneously.