>It would not surprise me if an AI trained on a lot of real world data does better than a hand tuned algorithm in the average case.

I have never read a single comment that appreciate the complexity of 3GPP modem design. So this may be the first one in ten plus years.

Designing a working 4G / 5G modem is not hard. Designing one that is as good as Qualcomm and works in thousands of edges cases in hundreds of different carrier configuration all around the world is god damn hard.

Massive-MIMO on FDD in itself is complicated enough. One could argue we should all switch to TDD, but we dont have that luxury and it is not always a win. Carrier aggregation with mmWave beamforming since Qualcomm is somehow still keen on getting it done.

And this is just on the client side. Most if not all on HN have very little to no appreciation on the complexity of mobile network and 5G. No wonder why sometimes you hear engineers working in telecom equipment industry are rather pissed about Tech industry in general.

Absolutely! I worked on 5G in a non-engineering role for a few months and was totally blown away by the amount of complexity in modern modems. Also amazed by how many opportunities for improvement those engineers found/how far away we are from a “perfect” system, especially with Wi-Fi.

I would be, given that "AI" hasn't really performed very well on any of the problems we have thrown at it thusfar. Perhaps speech generation is the best fit, but outside of a small smidgen of realms "AI" is not really worth the cost compared to simpler strategies that not only have higher accuracy but a more predictable mode of failure that can be designed around and ameliorated.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/30/1030329/machine-...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/walmart-shelves-plan-to-have-ro...

https://medium.com/starsky-robotics-blog/the-end-of-starsky-...