LeCun mentions disadvantages of the chip and then mentions a special purpose chip he has had a hand in producing. It doesn't seem surprising that he likes the idea of special purpose chips.
Aside from the particular criticism he makes toward the IBM algorithm, it seems to me that the approach of jumping from one special chip to another abandons the advantages of a general purpose computer itself. If your algorithm has to be cast in silicon each time, tuning the algorithm would depend on the chip's lifecycle. Also, only those few who have the resources to build a chip would be able to supply algorithms narrowing the number of minds working on this.
That alternative I'd like to see is a general purpose highly parallel chip.
Aside from the particular criticism he makes toward the IBM algorithm, it seems to me that the approach of jumping from one special chip to another abandons the advantages of a general purpose computer itself. If your algorithm has to be cast in silicon each time, tuning the algorithm would depend on the chip's lifecycle. Also, only those few who have the resources to build a chip would be able to supply algorithms narrowing the number of minds working on this.
That alternative I'd like to see is a general purpose highly parallel chip.
The one I know of is the Micron automaton chip. http://www.micron.com/about/innovations/automata-processing
Anyone know of anything similar?