> relatively simple state machines To be clear, all hardware branch predictors are "relatively simple state machines"; they need storage in the branch predict

> relatively simple state machines To be clear, all hardware branch predictors are "relatively simple state machines"; they need storage in the branch prediction tables which must super-fast to access, which means they can only store a few (sometimes dozens, but certainly not hundreds) bits per branch to reach the access latency goal. With input to the predictor encoded as binary, the weights quantized and small and encoded into binary, and the history small, even perceptrons are "relatively simple state machines". After all, their implementation is just going to become some combinatorial logic in the end.