From: bill.sloman@ieee.org   
      
   On 7/02/2026 4:21 am, john larkin wrote:   
   > On Fri, 6 Feb 2026 05:15:17 -0700, Don Y    
   > wrote:   
   >   
   >> On 2/5/2026 9:22 AM, Don Y wrote:   
   >>> On 2/5/2026 7:52 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:   
      
      
      
   >> All these advances are a consequence of people, parts and services   
   >> becoming more affordable from "globalization" -- "travel/transport"   
   >> in your terms.  Imagine being forced to living without them or   
   >> their consequences.   
   >   
   > I was just talking over a beer with the founder of circuitly. It's   
   > like Flux, namely a collaborative AI circuit designer. I'm skeptical.   
   >   
   > The pcb layout and such might be automated, but I don't think AI can   
   > invent things.   
      
   Legally, an invention is an innovation that isn't obvious to those   
   skilled in the art. It's an ill-defined concept and the lawyers have   
   attempted to define it with two more ill-defined concepts - "innovation"   
   and "skilled in the art".   
      
   Some mathematical theorem-proving algorithms have come up with proofs   
   that surprised their developers.   
      
   > The folks doing this AI circuit design stuff seem to be software   
   > people, not actual electronic designers.   
      
   That makes sense. It is software, after all. They probably need to   
   consult circuit designers about the quality of the output.   
      
   > Does AI really work for non-trivial pcb place+route?   
      
   The draftspeople at Cambridge Instruments were pretty happy with it.   
   The engineers who had to worry about coupling between tracks were known   
   to ask for local reworks from time to time.   
      
   One of the great layout disasters that I got to clean up involved 100mA   
   flowing down a ground track that produced enough voltage drop to wreck a   
   reference voltage output. Once we'd noticed what was going on it was   
   easy to fix, but software wouldn't have liked splitting the track along   
   most of its length.   
      
   --   
   Bill Sloman, Sydney   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)