How I use LLMs to learn complex topics
Ranked #1 on Hacker News with 90 points and 41 comments.
LLMs are used for any things. Learning new things is one of the top use cases.
Many engineers I know use generative AI for many functions, like building PoCs, internal tools or dashboards, or even learning new stuff. I personally find the style used by LLMs to explain things difficult to follow. It's just too simplistic and depending on the number of emojis used, a bit annoying too.
While I was analyzing new AI bottlenecks that might slow down data center buildup, I realized there are many aspects of chip production that I do not know. Surfing the web, I asked myself what if there would be a game to get you through the process of building a chip at a fab? For sure learning this way will stick, since you can map concepts with objects within the game. This is when I decided to try it, and it actually turned out really well.
Instead of just asking AI to explain a topic, I use the following flow:
What you get is a beautiful animation that is 100% accurate and free of hallucinations. For me, this method works a lot better than just reading endless materials that I find on Google, or trying to digest a bulleted list that is spat by a language model.
I've done this specifically for learning chip building and launch it under this website: ChipTycoon . You get to follow a cart from the moment when sand is collected, to the moment when a chip is finalized and delivered to a data center.