> if a computer system were able to design a better computer system, how much would it cost to then manufacture said system? How much would it cost to build the fabrication facilities necessary to create this hypothetical better computer?
Most of the computers we use today were designed by software: Feature sizes are (and have been for some time) in the realm where the Schrödinger equation matters, and more compute makes it easier to design smaller feature sizes.
Similar points apply to the question of cost: it has not been constant, the power to keep x-teraflops running has decreased* while the cost to develop the successor has increased.
Regarding LLMs in particular, I believe there are already models meeting all but one of your criteria — though I would argue that the missing one, "could actually do useful work reliably with minimal supervision", is by far the most important.
Most of the computers we use today were designed by software: Feature sizes are (and have been for some time) in the realm where the Schrödinger equation matters, and more compute makes it easier to design smaller feature sizes.
Similar points apply to the question of cost: it has not been constant, the power to keep x-teraflops running has decreased* while the cost to develop the successor has increased.
Regarding LLMs in particular, I believe there are already models meeting all but one of your criteria — though I would argue that the missing one, "could actually do useful work reliably with minimal supervision", is by far the most important.
* If I read this chart right, my phone beats the combined top 500 supercomputers when the linked article was written by a factor of ten or so: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Supercomputers-his...