In the early days of computing, people experimented with different signaling frameworks between electronic components (valves and later transistors). Decimal and ternary were used and abandoned because binary is much easier to implement and noise resistant.

What we do today is simulate non -deterministic (noisy) signals in LLM using deterministic (binary) signals, which is a massively inefficient way to do it.

I expect more chips with a neuron-like architecture will be coming out in the Next few years. It would certainly be a benefit for the environment, as the cat will not get back in the bag