Pretty rich by IBM to voice any criticism after its "Watson" disaster.
IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
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Re: IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
#12Saying that it evokes "white supremecy" is kind of a pathetic move.
Where do you see anything like that in the article?
Re: IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
#13Saying that it evokes "white supremecy" is kind of a pathetic move.
Where do you see anything like that in the article?
It's in their actual response: https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum-suprem...
> It is well known in the quantum community that we at IBM are concerned of where the term “quantum supremacy” has gone. The origins of the term, including both a reasoned defense and a candid reflection on some of its controversial dimensions, were recently discussed by John Preskill in a thoughtful article in Quanta Magazine. Professor Preskill summarized the two main objections to the term that have arisen from the community by explaining that the “word exacerbates the already overhyped reporting on the status of quantum technology” and that “through its association with white supremacy, evokes a repugnant political stance.”
Kind of silly to say we can't use the word supreme or supremacy anymore, just because it's used for white supremacists.
Re: IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
#14I'm a layman on this, but reading IBM's rebuttal, it seems that they're saying "you can't say that a conventional supercomputer would take 10'000 years because you haven't accounted for spilling to disk and other optimisations". I understand that some of these optimisations might be on the processing logic, but doesn't this end up being like comparing apples to oranges? I understand that there's also what seems to be…
They're saying explicitly:
>We argue that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on a classical system in 2.5 days and with far greater fidelity.
and therefore
>Because the original meaning of the term “quantum supremacy,” as proposed by John Preskill in 2012, was to describe the point where quantum computers can do things that classical computers can’t, this threshold has not been met.
Re: IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where do you see anything like that in the article?
It's in their actual response: https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum-suprem... > It is well known in the quantum community that we at IBM are concerned of where the term “quantum supremacy” has gone. The origins of the term, including both a reasoned defense and a candid reflection on some of its controversial dimensions, were recently discussed by John Preskill in a thoughtful article in Quanta Magaz…
Ah. Thanks for the link.
Re: IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
IBM's response to Google called "On 'Quantum Supremacy'" has this to say: "Because the original meaning of the term “quantum supremacy,” as proposed by John Preskill in 2012, was to describe the point where quantum computers can do things that classical computers can’t, this threshold has not been met." In other words, "quantum supremacy" is not being used as just a buzzword. So yeah, IBM is casting doubt on Google's…
But it's still pretty fuzzy. If we agree that 10,000 years on a classical system is supremacy but 2.5 years isn't, where's the cutoff? 25 years? 250? An average human lifespan? Edit: Thanks guys for pointing out where I misread the article, leaving mistake intact so the replies make sense.
2.5 days, as reported by IBM, is more clearly feasible.
But you’re right, it is a subjective judgement.
Re: IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
#17Saying that it evokes "white supremecy" is kind of a pathetic move.
> IBM's researchers argue that the term "supremacy" is in danger of being misunderstood by those outside the rarefied world of quantum geeks. Supremacy means exactly what it's supposed to mean for everyone outside and inside of science. What's the next step, google can't call its pixels "Just Black and Clearly White" because people would be confused about if it is racist or not... The world truly is becoming a weirde…
Or a more boring place as our language shrinks.
Re: IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
#18Saying that it evokes "white supremecy" is kind of a pathetic move.
> IBM's researchers argue that the term "supremacy" is in danger of being misunderstood by those outside the rarefied world of quantum geeks. Supremacy means exactly what it's supposed to mean for everyone outside and inside of science. What's the next step, google can't call its pixels "Just Black and Clearly White" because people would be confused about if it is racist or not... The world truly is becoming a weirde…
Edit: I am definitely wrong about my interpretation (see child post by DashAnimal)
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Original comment for reference:
I really don't think IBM implied the social (and definitely modern, circumstancial) figurative meaning of supremacy.
Any tech geek, or history major for that matter, would just read it as "crushing domination", with a strong implication that others won't be able to catch up, ever. You know, like Kings and Empires impose their supremacy on other, lesser powers.
In that sense, the expression "quantum supremacy" (QS) is indeed ambiguous insofar as:
- it's a convention, a simple "we agree to say that QS means " (not a very clear one at that, the concept lacks boundaries).
- "supremacy" in QS refers to "quantum", i.e. it's the domination of Q computers versus classic computers; and absolutely not that of the company behind the tech —a recent history of the Fortune 500 makes it emphatically clear that there is no such thing as definitive supremacy for companies. In fact, a certain IBM... [snip]
Big blue is apparently vexed, here; but disingenuous linguistically? Not so much in my opinion. More like downplaying —that is their pettiness if you ask me: why not salute the engineering feat, and look at yourself asking "OK guys, how do we win the next step?" In other words, play it fair.
Re: IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
#19This had been a consistent problem with quantum computers - - they come up with a quantum computer that can basically do one thing and compare it against a general piece of software not tuned for that problem. Once the software is tuned for the exact problem it is much closer in performance to the quantum computer. The same thing arises with dwave.
Re: IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy
#20Saying that it evokes "white supremecy" is kind of a pathetic move.
Well the word creeps me out and I wish they would choose another.
It isn’t even the right word to use since the intended meaning is a quantum computer that can do something that a classic computer can’t do at all, not just better at it.
Quantum Possible sounds better to me.