Right now the models are doubling in performance (by the METR time horizon metric at least) every 4 months, so 3 doublings in a year; conversely, I hear (not my field) it takes around a year to make a prototype IC and another year to turn that into mass production, i.e. if the next (late-2026 model) iPhone has a chip like this, it will likely be with, at best, a late-2024 set of weights. I think you can get open-weights models today that have performance equivalent to the SOTA-late-2024 while fitting in the RAM of a (high end) 2025-26 phone.
At some point the music will stop on training bigger models, and when that happens it will make sense to have ROM weights (or 100% analog circuits given how noise-resistant LLMs are), but we'll know when that is because the investment bubble funding the training of new models will have burst.
At some point the music will stop on training bigger models, and when that happens it will make sense to have ROM weights (or 100% analog circuits given how noise-resistant LLMs are), but we'll know when that is because the investment bubble funding the training of new models will have burst.