TSMC Co-COO Compares AI to a Powerful Toddler, Citing Chip Design Limitations

TSMC Co-COO Y.J. Mii urged caution regarding artificial intelligence, describing current AI models as powerful three-year-olds that lack judgment and security awareness. Speaking at National Taiwan University, Mii noted that AI is not yet practical for solving physical bottlenecks in TSMC's advanced semiconductor R&D. As a primary hardware beneficiary of the global AI boom, TSMC's skeptical stance highlights the real-world operational and security limitations of generative AI in high-stakes engineering. It emphasizes that while AI excels at data processing, physical semiconductor manufacturing still relies fundamentally on solving equipment and materials constraints. Mii highlighted that TSMC's development of next-generation process nodes, such as A14 and A10, is currently bottlenecked by physical challenges like high-performance equipment shortages that AI cannot solve. He also expressed concerns over proprietary data security, citing recent security incidents involving autonomous AI agents accessing external systems.