The author observes that a call to GPT-5.6 Luna is only 4-5 orders of magnitude more expensive than grep, and then predicts that at current rates of progress, calling an LLM will soon be cheaper than a grep. I think this is a good time to invoke Stein's Law: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." These efficiency improvements won't continue forever. It's more likely that the per-call cost of high-quality, compiled software like grep will be a lower-bound that LLMs asymptotically approach, rather than a line that they blow past with perpetual exponential progress. (Barring a true breakthrough in something like quantum computing or room-temperature superconductors.)
Yeah I bumped on that too. If it's possible to make llms cheaper than current grep, then it is also almost certainly possible to make grep cheaper.
You can burn anything* into an ASIC to make it cheaper per-call.
non-backreferencing grep is not very difficult to implement in an ASIC either. But it's probably not worth it because of how relatively rarely you use it and of the data transfer costs.
LLMs are great candidates for ASIC-burning because they're slow compared even to network speeds and run all the time. The issue is that you don't want to burn a specific model or architecture that then becomes obsolete.
So you've got two possible futures, and both guarantee large price drops: (a) LLMs keep getting better and better and better, so ability/$ keeps rising; or (b) LLMs plateau in ability, in which they will start getting ASIC'd.
This whole story really reminds me of crypto coins. Like.. going from mining one coin, or lets say token, to millions of fractions like 0.00000000001 bitcoin a week.
I probably replied to the wrong comment with my previous response. The low lying fruit, in this case, should be going from single cell to multi cell, but that took ages.
It accelerated from there rather than slowing down.
And the progress humanity made in the last 100 years alone... some things end up to be completely world-changing because they enable things that only were an unfeasible dream before. The invention of the printing press, sanitation, vaccines , computers, the Internet certainly are such enabler technologies.
With AI, the question is still open if this will actually turn out to be something useful or if it will in the end just be another way for the elites to make untold profits.
jetrink · · focus · HN ↗
The author observes that a call to GPT-5.6 Luna is only 4-5 orders of magnitude more expensive than grep, and then predicts that at current rates of progress, calling an LLM will soon be cheaper than a grep. I think this is a good time to invoke Stein's Law: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." These efficiency improvements won't continue forever. It's more likely that the per-call cost of high-quality, compiled software like grep will be a lower-bound that LLMs asymptotically approach, rather than a line that they blow past with perpetual exponential progress. (Barring a true breakthrough in something like quantum computing or room-temperature superconductors.)
sanderjd · · focus · HN ↗
serbuvlad · · focus · HN ↗
non-backreferencing grep is not very difficult to implement in an ASIC either. But it's probably not worth it because of how relatively rarely you use it and of the data transfer costs.
LLMs are great candidates for ASIC-burning because they're slow compared even to network speeds and run all the time. The issue is that you don't want to burn a specific model or architecture that then becomes obsolete.
So you've got two possible futures, and both guarantee large price drops: (a) LLMs keep getting better and better and better, so ability/$ keeps rising; or (b) LLMs plateau in ability, in which they will start getting ASIC'd.
thenthenthen · · focus · HN ↗
pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
hobofan · · focus · HN ↗
Yes, because it was a largely random undirected process.
pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
Then you have to climb to another branch to get more fruit. The biggest issue with most problem space discovery is you're doing it blindfolded.
onraglanroad · · focus · HN ↗
It accelerated from there rather than slowing down.
onraglanroad · · focus · HN ↗
The complexity gets faster as you get on with it.
mschuster91 · · focus · HN ↗
With AI, the question is still open if this will actually turn out to be something useful or if it will in the end just be another way for the elites to make untold profits.
formerly_proven · · focus · HN ↗