AI (Artificial Intelligence)

I noticed this is only routing tracks but the human still has to do the hard part, the footprint placement.

I suppose it has to to start somewhere.

parts placement is an easy task if you are not going to route the board yourself.

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The EEVblog regulars were not impressed several months ago: EEVblog 1535 - DeepPCB AI AutoRouting TESTED! - Page 1

Anyway, those wanting further discussion should head there, since this is drifting off-topic for a KiCad forum.

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So it appears those who are not retired still have jobs designing PCBs. :sweat_smile:

even If that works we can keep working… the result is a really poor looking design… here, we are after form and beauty not an entangled mess of wires. :laughing:

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And did you notice the two unrouted nets in the demo ?

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The AI entity is trying to outsmart the designer by running the FreeRouter in the backstage, haha

That might not be a bad idea. The knock on autorouters is the amount of setup they need to get good results. If the AI can do a smart setup and let the autorouter handle the detailed routing, that might be a win.

this AI could also have access to a better computer or be able to parallelize having different seeds to start with and then compare different results to present us with the best one… perhaps they were already doing this since they said the process takes 24h to return the results.

AI advertises in Airtasker for someone in a cheap country to do the work. :rofl:

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I don’t think that is high up on the list of most KiCad developers or forum users (yet?). AI will probably eventually be more successful at that than (conceited) engineers (not all, of course).

24h for 250 airwires is not really impressive, an experienced PCB designer should be able to do this in a lot less time (talking about working hours here). only advantage I see for now is, that the tool does not need to take breaks :upside_down_face:

Apparently recently added some AI (copilot):

https://diyodemag.com/reviews/better_pcb_electronics_hardware_design_with_flux_ai


Closed topic:

If you want to pay AI to actually create the board for you, there’s solutions like this:

But when routing dictates your placement, I’m not sure how helpful that will actually be.

Just for fun, I tried ChatGPT 3.5 to get a symbol for a 74LVC1G04, partly because a guy at work was suggesting that AI will put engineers out of jobs, and also the recent buzz around OpenAI having made a “breakthrough”.

After many wrong answers, I gave up. Apart from being wrong, ChatGPT is highly overconfident.

The best I got was this which got only 1/5 pins right:

       _____
  VCC |1   5| NC
   A  |     |
  GND |2   4| Y
      |_____|

Me: Please rate your accuracy as a percentage

ChatGPT

Given the general nature of the information I provide and the reliance on up-to-date details available until my last update in January 2022, I’d rate my accuracy at about 90%. However, when it comes to specific, current, or highly detailed information like the exact pin assignments for a particular component’s package, relying on the most recent datasheet from the manufacturer is always the best practice for complete accuracy.

Interesting to see that the Dunning-Kruger effect also applies to AI chat bots!

It’s not just the inaccuracy of the answers, but the confident way they are presented, that makes it pretty useless. Also the inability to explain the answers or where it got the information.

The impression I had previously was that the AI buzz is largely hype, and useful AGI is still decades off.

I appreciate that ChatGPT is not the latest, and there is a certain skill in “prompt engineering”, but it doesn’t look like I will be out of a job any time soon.

It’s more like dung and kludges.

Nah, you can twiddle that knob too.

Me: briefly show me a monostable circuit using a 555 in an unconfident style

ChatGPT: Uh, okay, so there’s this 555 timer thing, and, uh, you can use it for a monostable circuit, I think. You put a resistor and a capacitor in there, and when, you know, it gets triggered, it kind of reluctantly gives out a single pulse. The capacitor charges through the resistor, and after a bit, the 555 timer reluctantly switches its output to low. So, like, it’s a one-shot pulse thing, I guess. People use it when they need, um, a short, defined signal? But, you know, I might be a bit off, so, um, maybe double-check that.

Entertaining for a while, but I’ll go back to my datasheets now, thanks.

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One of my friends was told recently: “You won’t be beaten by AI. You’ll be beaten by someone using AI.”

Wel,l having spent 30 minutes with ChatGPT I can now put “AI expert” on my resume. :slight_smile:

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at one time there was a similar hype with CNC machines… that a turner is no longer needed, it does everything itself) many years have passed and we see the result…