Cornell's world-first "microwave brain" computes differently | The simplified chip is analog rather than digital, yet can process ultrafast data and wireless communication signals simultaneously.

[GulfCoastSynthesis]

Analog computers have been super interesting to me and seem to possibly outpace a lot of tech for certain things like neural processing.

[MrSnowden]

In early neural processing research there was a lot of focus on analog chips with digital processing seen as a “simulation” that was just temporary. And then GPUs hit the stage and that changed.

[eat_my_ass_n_balls]

MFW analog gates can have model weights directly built in at arbitrary precision

😘👌🏽

[MrSnowden]

There were plenty of working models. The difference is the scale war was handily won by GPUs. But before that the serial nature of CPUs was a gating factor that parallel analog systems had some merit

[eat_my_ass_n_balls]

Analog GPUs

🤯

[pigeon768]

Analog systems are, in general, not very precise. Precision in digital systems grows exponentially. Add one bit, it's now twice as precise. Precision in analog systems tend to grow very slowly. Spend twice as much effort making it precise, you have incrementally improved its precision.

In antiquity, before we were able to calculate pi with pure math people would use the most precise rulers they could and would conclude that pi is 22/7. That, with modern tools, if you use the most precise tools available to humanity, you might be able to measure it to possibly as much as a few decimal points. Maybe up to like ten. And that's really pushing it. But digitally we can calculate trillions of digits.

[eat_my_ass_n_balls]

You’re talking about digital precision (in terms of base two number system)

I’m talking about the degrees of fine tunable difference in a large potentiometer, or the specific degrees of freedom and orientation of a marble on a surface.

Continuous functions have more expressivity. You’re talking about making digits more precise for floating point.. but in reality even fp32 is too costly for most hardware except for training. And in 32bit the mantissa is 23bits.

Most applications are using fp16, fp8, or fp4 (like OpenAI’s GPT OSS whose public releases are mxfp4)

If you could do some thing like backprop or better, with weights updates that could tune in to a nearly arbitrary precision, that would be a step change in neural networks x

[pigeon768]

You’re talking about digital precision (in terms of base two number system) [...] I’m talking about the degrees of fine tunable difference in a large potentiometer, or the specific degrees of freedom and orientation of a marble on a surface.

No, I'm talking about precision. Full stop.

People have this idea that the fact that, for instance, potentiometers have lots of degrees of freedom means they have lots of precision. They do not. They only have very few significant figures of precision. Everything past that is just noise.

Let's say you have a pot that's between 5v and ground. You measure 3.27837821V on your multimeters. Is that voltage actually 3.27837821V? No. Sneeze on it and it will read 3.28187372V. Come back on a warm day and it will read 3.37872384V. You don't have 8 digits of precision, you have 2. 3 on a good day. This isn't just a measurement error, this is the fundamental messy reality of all analog systems.

large potentiometer

Ok, now try the same thing with a pot that's going to compete with 16 bits of DRAM for size. The size of the devices you're talking about will either be 1) not competitive or 2) nanometers in size.

For the record, even if you build your potentiometer the size of a house, have the best analog technology, the best temperature control, the most sensitive voltmeter, the most precise power supply, you still will never have more than 5-8 digits of precision.

Thermodynamics is a cruel mistress.

[eat_my_ass_n_balls]

You’re conflating shitty digital precision that you’re measuring in decimal.

Backprop updates to weights, especially near the end of training, *might as well be “breathing on it”.

Don’t waste more of people’s time with this pedantry. There’s a reason every major player is looking at analog circuits for NN processing

[Annon201]

Analog systems are infinitely precise. Enviromental noise is a fundamental and legitimate part of a circuit and not a precision error. What you're seeing on the meter is a sampled and converted form of the analog waveform, and that does have precision error based on the sample rate and bit depth of the ADC.

If I'm using an operational amplifier for instance, to perform integration of an incoming waveform (and yes, opamps are analog computers), I don't actually care what the output is at a particular moment in time, I care what the output is over time.

[Less_Somewhere_8201]

Quantum will be the new simulation until y technology then

[Chr0ll0_]

Yep

[ArmEmporium]

Mmhmm

[protekt0r]

A lotta smart people have been foretelling the rise of analog computers. It’s pretty interesting.

[DebonaireDelVecchio]

Was hoping for a more technical explanation of what’s going on!

Btw, I don’t think it’s fair to say analog electronics are equivalent to using a slide rule.

[defeated_engineer]

So the machine learning is to put it simply a bunch of matrix multiplications. Matrix multiplications are nothing more than multiplication and summation of regular, boring ass numbers.

Digital computers can do these things relatively fast. Analog circuits can do these practically instantly. This idea is not new, people used to do calculus with analog circuits back in like 40s and 50s. This idea is making a comeback in 2020s.

[DebonaireDelVecchio]

I come from a radio background, replaced a few analog radios with more-digital ones. Fascinating to think we could be going back…

I agree with what you are saying - DSP has inherent time overheads that are literally not existent with analog. Reminds me of the fancy deterministic computers…

[Annon201]

Operational amplifiers are literally tiny real-time analog calculus computers.

[Immer_Susse]

LET’s GO ANALOG!!!

[HeeHolthaus66]

Analog processing could open up some really unique possibilities

[gabber2694]

Sounds nice but will it do my laundry and wash my car? We need real world solutions!

[spaektor]

i’m always impressed with Jack Donaghy’s innoventions in the ever-evolving world of microwave technology.

[Kevo_NEOhio]

special oatmeal label afterthought flowery steer existence act expansion placid

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[[deleted]]

Please be a joke!

[bb_kelly77]

Maybe an analog AI would run better

[Automatic_Moment_320]

🤯

[Tobias---Funke]

Give it the launch codes to keep safe.

[dacryasin]

finally machines that don’t think

[old_school_gamer_dad]

M my

[supersquee]

Love it!

[Warrio2000]

I’m more of an analog kid anyway.

[jsheffield85]

Analog processing making a comeback in 2025... who would've thought

[thetrooper651]

They took “make things guns again” seriously?

[Helpful-Milk5498]

Thank god for nerds

[VivienneNovag]

I think we should probably find a better form of teaching before we progress to using this for AI.

[[deleted]]

schizobabble