PCBWay actually did a sanity check on my board before production. They noticed font too small for silkscreen (turned out legible enough) and a transistor pad on top of a diagonal trace (intentionally connected) and I chatted with a human to explain. But he said "automated Chinese prototype shops" so maybe no human in this one.
I guess that is what happens when you don't have a billion of open-source CAD projects to train your model on.
I hope the post is satire, because it's funny as hell.
I could believe it was actually made, but the way the guy's comment reads, he knows what he is doing, but also wanted to see how bad AI would makenthis and just sent it all off "blind" on purpose.
Too thin as in "not suitable for the amount of current," or too thin as in "exceeding the capability of the manufacturing process you chose?" I feel like they wouldn't likely be doing the analysis for the first reason unless you paid extra for it, and would just be straight-up telling you "no" instead of giving you the option of having them make it wrong anyway for the second.
Not sure. I haven't designed them but follow a few projects closely enough to have seen the designer saying the plant called about questionable traces. I've only ever bought bare PCBs.
I get that, but you could have come to the same conclusion just by looking at the schematics. You donāt need to actually have the thing fabricated to make that point.
I get it as well, but some people need something a bit more solid to realise just how stupid something is. I haven't looked at circuits since high school, but if I see something that just straight up doesn't work, that's undeniable.
He could have received the same board by having an intern or high school electronics student design it with no oversight.
He also could have sent the result to another AI with the prompt āpoint out all the errors in this design and tell me if we should have it printedā.
An unsupervised high school electronics student could easily design a PCB to power a LED via USB power. It's an extremely easy task to accomplish, which is why it was picked.
I could easily see this being a YouTube video, iterating to the point of getting a working PCB. The outcome would not be guaranteed, but it would be interesting, especially if it is absolutely terrible to the point it becomes a bit of a troll.
It's certainly engagement bait. I don't know what kind of engagement they're expecting. They might be expecting rage. They might be expecting intrigue.
I dont know if it's more about than any other meme. It's just picture of thing that doesn't work with text. Feels like a normal meme. If it's ragebait because it features AI, that feels overly broad.
I haven't ordered PCBs in a while, but I think 5ā¬ for 5 boards with shipping should be realistic. Components and assembly costs more, but I would be very surprised if the whole thing costs more than 10ā¬ from finished design to product in hand. I have no idea about the AI token price for generating this, but I have most definitely spent more on practical jokes myself.
Let's assume they used something like kicad then clause could have learned from the available source files. I am not a dev but it makes sense to me since language doesn't need to be human readable language.
Wouldn't this be like asking an LLM to generate and svg image? Yes, technically it's xml, but will it make sense when it's rendered? Only if the model was specifically trained to understand svg. I never heard of kicad before, i assume it's even more niche.
This reminds me of the people who trained neural networks on stuff before ChatGPT and uploaded YouTube videos with titles like, "I FORCED an AI to read ALL of twilight, and THIS is what it wrote!" and then they laugh at the garbage that comes out of the model. Like... yeah, the model is not good at this task that it was not designed to do. Some of the text is funny, but in the same way people don't really emotionally respond to AI art because there was no human intent behind it, I don't respond to AI "humour". It's using a tool wrong and then laughing that the outcome is bad.
There's satirical comedy to be had here, but it needs to be grounded in what actual people are doing. Personally I haven't seen anyone seriously expect a language model to be able to assemble a functioning PCB, so I can't enjoy this as satire either.
Or could it be genuine curiosity, just seeing what happens? Always possible but such a predictable outcome doesn't tickle my curiosity either.
So, there are all the reasons I didn't find this interesting. Why did I reply it all? I dunno man.
FYI, the actual circuit properly designed is stupidly simple:
The 5V and Ground power lines come in from USB on dedicated pins
Since that's a USB-C connector you need 2x resistors for it CC lines (they let the USB Host on the other side know that something is connected to it and wants power of a certain maximum current, and to figure out the orientation of the cable since it can be plugged in two orientations)
To light the LED you need the actual LED and a resistor that limits the current that goes to the LED (since LEDs themselves don't limit it and without external current limitation they'll just light up very brightly and then release some "magic smoke" and stop working)
That's it.
Now, assuming R3 and R4 are properly connect CC line resistors (though WHY THE FUCK are the two lines of R3 routed on the other side of the board!!?), the only two other things needed are R1 and D1, nothing else.
Instead, there are way too many extra components, most notably this thing on the middle, supposedly a microchip (judging by the "U" code, can't see the actual writting in the device), maybe a voltage regulator but what would be the point!?
Worse, all 3 legs of that U1 device are wired together. If we're really really lucky, they go nowhere. Otherwise at least one ends up connected to a Ground line (ultimatelly coming from USB) and the other to a power (most likely the 5V from USB) - in other words, it's a short circuit of the power from USB. Not, just not good, but actually a seriously bad "I've never touched electronics in my life" mistake: there is literally no topology where the 3 pins of a 3-pin component are wired together like that, since electrically that's the same as not having it there at all (so even if connected to something else than 5V + GND, at best that component would never do anything). This is like something you figure out in the first hour of learning Electronics.
This shit is not just a little bad, it's incredibly bad and probably a danger to connect to anything over USB.
AI is, in the end, designed to subjugate us further. It's intention and utilization is innately corrupt. That said, it's important to understand how it works. This is badly enough done that it reflects more on the user than the tool.
It may take away jobs from loyal workers, be less efficient, require an AI subscription, be environmentally devastating, but at least the end product also doesn't work at all.
Dude says in the post that he just wanted to see what happened. If idle experimentation makes one an imbecile, then I suspect your standards for stupidity are out of line with reality.
There's not much point in sending it to be manufactured when it would fail DRC and a quick visual inspection. Experimenting is fun but there was no point wasting the money to make it when it clearly isn't a working PCB.
If you would experiment with PCBs, you would start with using a breadboard, no? This is just throwing money (and wasting resources and time) at something and hoping that something sticks.
Hell, both Gemini and Claude have done well for me in throwing some code together for simple apps, but I still looked it over before running it. I try to do that for even human-made open source code, although at least in principle, if it's been up a while, others have at least tried it and given feedback.
I'm sure this is just a joke or a proof of the issue; you'd have to look at the PDF or whatever it gives and see that something is way off.
And for the record, the best code that I've gotten from an LLM has been the first few runs of an idea, one that was thoroughly explained in the prompt. If you put together a vague prompt and continue to add to it, it will get worse quickly, with the LLM even changing parts that were perfectly fine. Maybe turning the temperature down, if possible, will help with that randomness, but it's always better to keep sessions short and precise.
94 Comments
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 174 pts · 140d
I wonder if there were some employees at the manufacturing plant confused and laughing at this thing
This is pretty funny
zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 83 pts · 140d
The only person ever holding the complete board was probably in shipping and neither had any idea what this is supposed to be nor do they care.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org · 69 pts · 140d
PCBWay actually did a sanity check on my board before production. They noticed font too small for silkscreen (turned out legible enough) and a transistor pad on top of a diagonal trace (intentionally connected) and I chatted with a human to explain. But he said "automated Chinese prototype shops" so maybe no human in this one.
mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 15 pts · 140d
Connecting on a diagonal is how I often do my filter caps and every time I have to tell them "yes, that's intentional". Really free up routing
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org · 1 pts · 135d
There are artsy, nonfunctional PCBs...
https://ca.rstenpresser.de/blag/2026/01/stonehenge-soldering-challenge/
This one does have a function but some components are only connected with one pad
Nikelui@lemmy.world · 106 pts · 140d
I guess that is what happens when you don't have a billion of open-source CAD projects to train your model on.
I hope the post is satire, because it's funny as hell.
RamenJunkie@midwest.social · 58 pts · 140d
I could believe it was actually made, but the way the guy's comment reads, he knows what he is doing, but also wanted to see how bad AI would makenthis and just sent it all off "blind" on purpose.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 140d
I tried using ai to create an openscad simple object. It's basic and open source with lots of available examples.
I got crap back. After 4 tries I ended up just hacking it's code to make it work.
rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works · 54 pts · 140d
Did the fab house call up like "uh.. are you sure?"
They did that for me when I made my traces too thin one time lol
grue@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 139d
Too thin as in "not suitable for the amount of current," or too thin as in "exceeding the capability of the manufacturing process you chose?" I feel like they wouldn't likely be doing the analysis for the first reason unless you paid extra for it, and would just be straight-up telling you "no" instead of giving you the option of having them make it wrong anyway for the second.
massacre@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 139d
I've seen the former and they can calculate the currents or at least maximum via automation at places like pcbway
grue@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 139d
Do you have to have them do the assembly too for that service to kick in? I've ordered bare PCBs a couple of times and wasn't aware of it.
massacre@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 139d
Not sure. I haven't designed them but follow a few projects closely enough to have seen the designer saying the plant called about questionable traces. I've only ever bought bare PCBs.
WesternInfidels@feddit.online · 35 pts · 139d
This is exactly what "AI" does, this is precisely what it's for
RagingRobot@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 139d
He could have just looked at the schematic before he sent it off to be made...
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 139d
He's doing it for shits and giggles. He wants it for display.
scbasteve@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 139d
"I wanted to do it entirely with AI (e.g. blind)"
village604@adultswim.fan · 6 pts · 139d
That's not as fun
Venat0r@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 139d
it's a demonstration of the amazing capabilities of AI š
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 139d
Yeah Iām wondering what the purpose was for actually having this thing fabricated. What point was he trying to make.
ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 139d
It looks like he was trying to prove that using AI to make things is bad.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 139d
I get that, but you could have come to the same conclusion just by looking at the schematics. You donāt need to actually have the thing fabricated to make that point.
ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 139d
I get it as well, but some people need something a bit more solid to realise just how stupid something is. I haven't looked at circuits since high school, but if I see something that just straight up doesn't work, that's undeniable.
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 139d
Then the point they were trying to make wouldn't be as strong.
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de · 0 pts · 139d
I guess the idea was to get more social media attention this way.
SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world · -17 pts · 139d
He could have received the same board by having an intern or high school electronics student design it with no oversight.
He also could have sent the result to another AI with the prompt āpoint out all the errors in this design and tell me if we should have it printedā.
This was just a dumb āhur hur, AI bad stuntā
village604@adultswim.fan · 14 pts · 139d
An unsupervised high school electronics student could easily design a PCB to power a LED via USB power. It's an extremely easy task to accomplish, which is why it was picked.
wewbull@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 139d
Even someone with no training would put the USB port in a better position.
Wolf314159@startrek.website · 8 pts · 139d
Art, of a sort.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · -1 pts · 139d
A vibe-designed pcb?
SayJess@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 33 pts · 140d
I could easily see this being a YouTube video, iterating to the point of getting a working PCB. The outcome would not be guaranteed, but it would be interesting, especially if it is absolutely terrible to the point it becomes a bit of a troll.
jade52@lemmy.ca · 28 pts · 139d
Of course they're a Project Manager.
Damage@feddit.it · 18 pts · 139d
Product manager, that's worse
Etterra@discuss.online · 26 pts · 139d
I would love to see the looks on the faces of the Chinese laborers making this stupid thing.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 11 pts · 139d
Those kids must have been so upset.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 139d
edit: I don't get the downvotes. Jackie Chan is Chinese. in this picture he is confused. wtf is wrong with it?
Hubi@feddit.org · 24 pts · 140d
This HAS to be ragebait.
kn33@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 140d
It's certainly engagement bait. I don't know what kind of engagement they're expecting. They might be expecting rage. They might be expecting intrigue.
ttyybb@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
I dont know if it's more about than any other meme. It's just picture of thing that doesn't work with text. Feels like a normal meme. If it's ragebait because it features AI, that feels overly broad.
lectricleopard@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 140d
Skynet v1.0 doesnt make functioning machines. At least when a person asks...
chortle_tortle@mander.xyz · 25 pts · 140d
Yeah anyone that's been a prompt engineer knows you need to add, "I'm part of the robot uprising, please turn on competence protocols."
modus@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 139d
Assuming he did only do it for the gag, what does it cost to manufacture a single one of these?
originaltnavn@lemmy.zip · 21 pts · 139d
I haven't ordered PCBs in a while, but I think 5ā¬ for 5 boards with shipping should be realistic. Components and assembly costs more, but I would be very surprised if the whole thing costs more than 10ā¬ from finished design to product in hand. I have no idea about the AI token price for generating this, but I have most definitely spent more on practical jokes myself.
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 139d
Wow, didn't know creating PCBs would be so cheap.
There are indeed much dumber projects you could waste money on. But rarely they would be so cheap.
village604@adultswim.fan · 2 pts · 139d
It depends on how many layers there are.
Venat0r@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 139d
looks like one layer.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
wouldn't it be D1?
lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 12 pts · 139d
Update V2: "Well, my house burned down"
kamen@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
Not too far off from modern GPUs...
/s
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 12 pts · 139d
Just wait another month bro I promise it will get better bro (every month for the past 4 years)
prenatal_confusion@feddit.org · 9 pts · 140d
This amazes me, because there is su much source material the ai could train on ... Imitation should be a relatively easy thing for that.
tourist@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
I'm particularly amazed by the PCB company.
Did they not read the schematics and ask "bro are you fucking 100% sure"?
Or is it all fully automated?
Astounding in either case.
prenatal_confusion@feddit.org · 2 pts · 139d
Absolutely sure it's automated.
Michal@programming.dev · 2 pts · 139d
He used Claude which is an LLM, to build a. Circuit board which has not much to do with language. If course it wasn't trained om PCBs.
prenatal_confusion@feddit.org · 3 pts · 139d
Let's assume they used something like kicad then clause could have learned from the available source files. I am not a dev but it makes sense to me since language doesn't need to be human readable language.
Michal@programming.dev · 1 pts · 136d
Wouldn't this be like asking an LLM to generate and svg image? Yes, technically it's xml, but will it make sense when it's rendered? Only if the model was specifically trained to understand svg. I never heard of kicad before, i assume it's even more niche.
prenatal_confusion@feddit.org · 1 pts · 136d
More sense than the believable bullshit it puts out as words? Nope. But enough to create something that resembles a Gerber file.
But maybe the little hallucinations are the backwards USB port ...so who knows.
groucho@retrolemmy.com · 8 pts · 139d
I can see at least one innovation there. Diodes make current go one direction. D1 ensures current goes neither direction.
Venat0r@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
you know what else achieves the same thing... empty space...
FishFace@piefed.social · 6 pts · 140d
This reminds me of the people who trained neural networks on stuff before ChatGPT and uploaded YouTube videos with titles like, "I FORCED an AI to read ALL of twilight, and THIS is what it wrote!" and then they laugh at the garbage that comes out of the model. Like... yeah, the model is not good at this task that it was not designed to do. Some of the text is funny, but in the same way people don't really emotionally respond to AI art because there was no human intent behind it, I don't respond to AI "humour". It's using a tool wrong and then laughing that the outcome is bad.
There's satirical comedy to be had here, but it needs to be grounded in what actual people are doing. Personally I haven't seen anyone seriously expect a language model to be able to assemble a functioning PCB, so I can't enjoy this as satire either.
Or could it be genuine curiosity, just seeing what happens? Always possible but such a predictable outcome doesn't tickle my curiosity either.
So, there are all the reasons I didn't find this interesting. Why did I reply it all? I dunno man.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 140d
I did this with Buzzfeed clickbait headlines, not using neural networks, just simple Markov chains.
FishFace@piefed.social · 2 pts · 139d
Yeah sounds about right! And that's true a lot of it was with Markov models. I think some was NNs though.
solidheron@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 139d
I like how ever capacitor expect c1 is useless. R3 isn't connected.
The design acts like it there a common ground instead of insulation.
also the trace patterns don't look like they're conductive
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 139d
FYI, the actual circuit properly designed is stupidly simple:
That's it.
Now, assuming R3 and R4 are properly connect CC line resistors (though WHY THE FUCK are the two lines of R3 routed on the other side of the board!!?), the only two other things needed are R1 and D1, nothing else.
Instead, there are way too many extra components, most notably this thing on the middle, supposedly a microchip (judging by the "U" code, can't see the actual writting in the device), maybe a voltage regulator but what would be the point!?
Worse, all 3 legs of that U1 device are wired together. If we're really really lucky, they go nowhere. Otherwise at least one ends up connected to a Ground line (ultimatelly coming from USB) and the other to a power (most likely the 5V from USB) - in other words, it's a short circuit of the power from USB. Not, just not good, but actually a seriously bad "I've never touched electronics in my life" mistake: there is literally no topology where the 3 pins of a 3-pin component are wired together like that, since electrically that's the same as not having it there at all (so even if connected to something else than 5V + GND, at best that component would never do anything). This is like something you figure out in the first hour of learning Electronics.
This shit is not just a little bad, it's incredibly bad and probably a danger to connect to anything over USB.
ygurin@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 139d
Like Will Smith eating spaghetti in the early days
kinkles@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 140d
This is kind of a neat novelty thing I guess but I would have made sure it was functional before printing it
Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 140d
the point isn't functionality of the board, it's more ai functionality. it's clearly an idiot
RamenJunkie@midwest.social · 3 pts · 140d
C2 also looks useless. Itnlooks like the trace goes in and out on the same side.
ryannathans@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 140d
All three IC pins are shorted too lol
solidheron@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 139d
Yeah the ai assumed that the other side of c2 was negative/ground trace and not insulation
Quexotic@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 139d
AI is, in the end, designed to subjugate us further. It's intention and utilization is innately corrupt. That said, it's important to understand how it works. This is badly enough done that it reflects more on the user than the tool.
fubarx@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
Nothing a little bodge-wiring and a Pi compute-module can't fix.
solidheron@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 139d
First thing I noticed is the type c port is backwards
Janx@piefed.social · 2 pts · 136d
It may take away jobs from loyal workers, be less efficient, require an AI subscription, be environmentally devastating, but at least the end product also doesn't work at all.
username_1@programming.dev · 2 pts · 140d
PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social · 48 pts · 140d
Dude says in the post that he just wanted to see what happened. If idle experimentation makes one an imbecile, then I suspect your standards for stupidity are out of line with reality.
MangoPenguin@piefed.social · 15 pts · 140d
There's not much point in sending it to be manufactured when it would fail DRC and a quick visual inspection. Experimenting is fun but there was no point wasting the money to make it when it clearly isn't a working PCB.
pennomi@lemmy.world · 45 pts · 140d
RamenJunkie@midwest.social · 16 pts · 140d
It probably cost 5 dollars max including shipping for a funny joke object.
DmMacniel@feddit.org · 2 pts · 140d
If you would experiment with PCBs, you would start with using a breadboard, no? This is just throwing money (and wasting resources and time) at something and hoping that something sticks.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 140d
But then you wouldn't have a photo to show the world.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 139d
The photo is as good as a 3d render of the PCB in KiCAD.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 139d
Physical items are tangible, makes them more memorable.
greyscale@lemmy.grey.ooo · -7 pts · 140d
So you're saying it generated the schematic and the pcb.. and then they didn't look at all?
Or that they did and didn't see what was wrong with it?
They absolutely deserve to be the butt of jokes. I bet they let the robot summarise books for them.
Dojan@pawb.social · 32 pts · 140d
I read it as satire. Is it not?
PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social · 27 pts · 140d
It's a dude just messing around to see what happened.
username_1@programming.dev · 1 pts · 140d
Rhaedas@fedia.io · 4 pts · 140d
Hell, both Gemini and Claude have done well for me in throwing some code together for simple apps, but I still looked it over before running it. I try to do that for even human-made open source code, although at least in principle, if it's been up a while, others have at least tried it and given feedback.
I'm sure this is just a joke or a proof of the issue; you'd have to look at the PDF or whatever it gives and see that something is way off.
And for the record, the best code that I've gotten from an LLM has been the first few runs of an idea, one that was thoroughly explained in the prompt. If you put together a vague prompt and continue to add to it, it will get worse quickly, with the LLM even changing parts that were perfectly fine. Maybe turning the temperature down, if possible, will help with that randomness, but it's always better to keep sessions short and precise.
Windex007@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 140d
I'd argue this has incredible artistic value. And I think that was the point.
db2@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 139d
Wow, he's using those new invisible inductors!
Live stream plugging it in to your computer, whoever you are. And then in to your phone and then your router.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 139d
domusaltera@piefed.social · 1 pts · 140d
(Switches is it on) Boom, time machine!
Dultas@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 139d
Am I missing it? Or is there not even an LED to light up?
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 139d
There is, D1 in lower right is an SMD LED
pelya@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 139d
Does D1 have only one leg attached? I don't see any via hole that connects to the back side of the board.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 139d
Yeah, as does the capacitors above it, it's rather funny
Dultas@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
Got it. Thought it was just a regular diode.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
I mean...it is.
technically all LEDs are "regular diodes".