"The Quantum Computing Bubble" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32630815
"Separating Quantum Hype From Quantum Reality" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32691220
The quantum computing bubble
11–20 of 144 posts
Re: The quantum computing bubble
#12Sometimes I wonder if we should try building a news site optimised for seeing the effect of appeals to authority. To write an article for the site, we would need to: 1. Write a headline with no mentions of any experts. 2. Write another headline mentioning at least one expert in it. 3. Write the content without mentioning any experts. 4. Write the content and sprinkle names of experts as needed. 5. Publish. Now, the r…
I love the idea. I've always wondered if the format of long form expert opinions could be replaced by a knowledge graph that is independent of the expert. E.g. instead of article "Economist John rejects minimum wage" Root node "Minimum wage is not the best solution to problem x" -> because -> , -> because -> In this way other experts could add to the graph and the differences between different branches of argument co…
I've thought about this before, but notating as a structure that needs logical supports instead of a graph.
Re: The quantum computing bubble
#13Sometimes I wonder if we should try building a news site optimised for seeing the effect of appeals to authority. To write an article for the site, we would need to: 1. Write a headline with no mentions of any experts. 2. Write another headline mentioning at least one expert in it. 3. Write the content without mentioning any experts. 4. Write the content and sprinkle names of experts as needed. 5. Publish. Now, the r…
Well, I don’t know, I do think that expert opinions can carry weight. Like: “according to Dr Malcolm Alan of the department of geology at Harvard university, this kind of rock usually indicates…”. I mean knowing that a professor of geology said that is evidence that a fact is true, isn’t it?
Re: The quantum computing bubble
#14There’s also billions going into commercial fusion reactors, which haven’t turned net positive yet. The goal of the investment is to build that capability tho, same (I think?) as with quantum computing. Weird critique imo.
It's just saying that quantum startups are overvalued. Which may be true. It's certainly phrased in the article as an opinion.
Re: The quantum computing bubble
#15>That means these firms are collecting orders of magnitude more in financing than they're able to earn in actual revenue — a growing bubble that could eventually burst.
>"The little revenue they generate mostly comes from consulting missions aimed at teaching other companies about 'how quantum computers will help their business,'"
well, that makes QC bona fide a tech industry.
Re: The quantum computing bubble
#16I think his model of the situation is short-sighted, to say nothing of the callbacks to that management principle involving transistors.
If you're thinking that the whole purpose of QC will be quickly subsumed by wide algorithms with superpolynomial speedup, you might be missing the point. It's about how computers are built, not about stuffing one specific abstraction into another. If suddenly we discover we can build a machine that can generate random numbers a quadrillion times faster than any current hardware design, that's a new space in computation.
I mean consider how widely deployed the parallelism construct is now, and that Amdahl's law was elucidated in the 60's.
Parallelism was just one degree of freedom for us to climb the S-curve on, quantum computing seems to provide essentially a continuum of them.
Re: The quantum computing bubble
#17Well hopefully the quantum industry has fundraised enough to last them for a while . It isn't the exact picture, but minus potential shareholder (edit:lawsuits) for tanking stocks these are exactly the sorts of startups that should be comfortable with taking 70%+ haircuts to their valuation.
Re: The quantum computing bubble
#18Sometimes I wonder if we should try building a news site optimised for seeing the effect of appeals to authority. To write an article for the site, we would need to: 1. Write a headline with no mentions of any experts. 2. Write another headline mentioning at least one expert in it. 3. Write the content without mentioning any experts. 4. Write the content and sprinkle names of experts as needed. 5. Publish. Now, the r…
> 5. Prompt the reader to evaluate how their thoughts had changed after reading the expert version of the article. Basing the perceived quality of an article on an appeal to authority doesn't make much sense either. The Royal Society's motto is literally "take nobody's word for it."
To be pedantic, their motto is literally Nullius in verba which translates as you describe.
Re: The quantum computing bubble
#19Sometimes I wonder if we should try building a news site optimised for seeing the effect of appeals to authority. To write an article for the site, we would need to: 1. Write a headline with no mentions of any experts. 2. Write another headline mentioning at least one expert in it. 3. Write the content without mentioning any experts. 4. Write the content and sprinkle names of experts as needed. 5. Publish. Now, the r…
[deleted]
Re: The quantum computing bubble
#20Sometimes I wonder if we should try building a news site optimised for seeing the effect of appeals to authority. To write an article for the site, we would need to: 1. Write a headline with no mentions of any experts. 2. Write another headline mentioning at least one expert in it. 3. Write the content without mentioning any experts. 4. Write the content and sprinkle names of experts as needed. 5. Publish. Now, the r…
Having done that, you could then write a paper on your findings. You would then be an expert! You could then rerun the experiment using your paper as the story in order to validate your initial findings…
Appeals to findings/evidence would be different, nah?