Future Computers Will Be Radically Different (Analog Computing)
Why Hacker News recommends it
Treated as the accessible reference on analog computing for neural nets, especially the Mythic AI segment.
What it is
Veritasium explains why analog computing may suit AI workloads, covering old analog computers, The Analog Thing and Mythic's analog chips that use flash memory for neural network inference. It argues digital hardware is hitting limits.
Recommended by 7 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2022 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec iKlsR · 2022-03 · on “Ask HN: What concepts have you never truly understood?”
Agreed. I've never really gotten into neural networks, most of the times I start but get distracted or bored/lost and suddenly enough a Vertiasium video pops up and about everything just slots into place, stuff you've glossed over or heard before just make sense. [this video] . Start at minute 4:00.
Recommends cultofmetatron · 2022-03 · on “Ask HN: What is your take on carbon emissions of Machine Learning”
basicly, we can do things like matrix operations and differntial equations using specialized hardware that performs computation over analog signals rather than buidlign discrete systems. the end result is that we dont' need anywhere near the level of compute to do the job as its done using an analog of the physical process. here's two youtube videos that explain is much better than I could. [LINK] [this video] suffice to say, your average house fly exhibits behavior that absolutely dominates our best drones and with a fraction of the circuitry.
Recommends beambot · 2022-06 · on “Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers”
Great Veritasium video on YouTube about analog neuromorphic architectures and their promise for lower-power operations: [this video]
Recommends woojoo666 · 2022-06 · on “Photonic Chip Performs Image Recognition at the Speed of Light”
It's a big area of research in AI. Veritasium has two great videos on it: [this video] [LINK] I found a hackernews discussion for the second one: [LINK]
Recommends JieJie · 2023-03 · on “Richard Stallman's thoughts on ChatGPT, AI and their impact on humanity”
I found this Veritasium video interesting, about a company that is paring down models so they fit on analog chips, so the chips can be used in self-contained devices. It also appears that quantum computers may be even better for matrix math that transformers rely on. If all these hardware advances pan out... [this video] [LINK]
Recommends sholladay · 2024-08 · on “What Is Analog Computing?”
Veritasium has a good video about analog computers. It covers how they work, what they are used for, pros and cons compared to digital, what they look like today, a bit of the history and their possible future. [this video]
Recommends sushid · 2024-11 · on “The Analog Thing: Analog Computing for the Future”
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) [this video]
Cites yazaddaruvala · 2022-03 · on “U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles”
[LINK] This is a rather intuitive mathematical proof that neural nets can emulate all functions in many dimensions. Knowing integrals (Calc 102) would help. With this information it’s either that self-driving is eventually possible or human brains are not mathematically representable (i.e. something akin to a soul). Meanwhile, the data collection/storage is getting better (all Teslas are continually testing FSD and reporting failure cases, synthetic generation of “good and unique” perfectly labeled data[0] is only a year or two “old”). Sensors/cameras are improving (and have a lot more room to improve). The compute hardware is getting better and cheaper (analog computers[1], TSMC 2nm and bey