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Google Buys a Quantum Computer

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Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#41

Post by kamaal »

michaelochurch wrote: post #39
prawks wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who works on the rest of the existing Google systems once everyone just up and switches to doing research and "meaningful work"?

Well, here's how I think about it. If you have an open allocation system where people are free to work directly for the company, then people spend some time on the research work that interests them, and some on the maintenance and upkeep of critical systems. Why do they volunteer for less attractive projects? Because they actually care, because the company is (imagine this) worth caring about. Once the maintenance wo…

The way I see is, there is always going to be a 'somebody has to do this dirty work' mentality everywhere. No matter where you work at.

What work you get is very similar to being born. A baby born could have easily been somebody else. If you look at this way, you are almost definitely not going to get those big projects unless you are into some kind of a political game or are simply good enough and get your due chance.

One thing I've learned the hard way is, a person must not 'wait'. He must not wait for chances to come, or the ecosystem to help him, or somebody else to do it for them. Couple of days back I was reading Aaron Swartz's essay on productivity. In which he mentions a very important point- Always choose the most important problem to work on. And if you follow that advice seriously. You will someday find yourself working on most important problems in the world.

In the end, its just comes down to you. In large corporation project allocations are random at best, completely devoid of merit.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#43

Post by michaelochurch »

kamaal wrote: post #41
michaelochurch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here's how I think about it. If you have an open allocation system where people are free to work directly for the company, then people spend some time on the research work that interests them, and some on the maintenance and upkeep of critical systems. Why do they volunteer for less attractive projects? Because they actually care, because the company is (imagine this) worth caring about. Once the maintenance wo…

The way I see is, there is always going to be a 'somebody has to do this dirty work' mentality everywhere. No matter where you work at. What work you get is very similar to being born. A baby born could have easily been somebody else. If you look at this way, you are almost definitely not going to get those big projects unless you are into some kind of a political game or are simply good enough and get your due chanc…

If you look at this way, you are almost definitely not going to get those big projects unless you are into some kind of a political game or are simply good enough and get your due chance.

You would have had a more accurate statement if you truncated it before the "or". Closed-allocation companies always have the most important work done by the politicians, not the people most adept at doing it. There are no exceptions.

In which he mentions a very important point- Always choose the most important problem to work on.

This will get you fired. It means that you are pursuing your own career goals (and benefiting the company, but not your immediate managers) rather than your boss's and you will be shit-canned as soon as he finds out.

You will someday find yourself working on most important problems in the world.

No, you will be long-term unemployed if you follow that strategy.

I have a lot of respect for Aaron Swartz, but look at what the fuckers in power did to him.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#44

Post by mtrimpe »

sp332 wrote: post #35
greenmountin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absurd. That's a comment on a blog post, proposing a bombastic title, "Better than Shor". I'm pretty sure if they could get anywhere near Shor using their architecture they'd get more than a sympathy Nature paper. The truth is, D-Wave has done nothing to foster the coherence of their "qubits", and so they have built a very expensive, superconducting, classical computer. There is no quantum trick, actually. Yo…

There is an adiabatic factoring algorithm. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-largest-factored-quantum-algori...

Indeed. It's still quadratic time but it's a significant step up.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#46

Post by mike_ivanov »

yk wrote: post #5
lmm wrote: post #3

Have D-Wave demonstrated any actual quantum behaviour yet? I had them down as a scam prior to the google involvement; now I'm not sure what to think.

It seems that they did build a probably quantum but quite likely not computer. They are actually solving some optimization problem. And they do this quite well. However as far as I understood, they did not convincingly demonstrate that they are actually using a quantum version or a classical version of the system. And quite likely they can not run arbitrary computations. So it seems that the jury is still out, if the…

It is an adiabatic quantum computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_quantum_computation

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#47

Post by mike_ivanov »

"Quantum" is a bit of buzzword in a sense that people understand it in a very narrow sense. D-Wave's system is NOT a "classical" qubit-based quantum computer. What it does is essentially global optimization of multimode functions using quantum effects.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#48

Post by cdibona »

lmm wrote: post #3

Have D-Wave demonstrated any actual quantum behaviour yet? I had them down as a scam prior to the google involvement; now I'm not sure what to think.

Here's a paper that we felt answered this question: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4595

Like you, I was worried about the snake oil aspects of qc, but ...well, I got over it when I looked into the science of the d-wave implementation and talked with folks like Sergio.

Please note,we're talking about a quantum annealer here, not a full on qc and we're okay with that :-) Also, disclaimer: I'm a googler who worked with our quantum folks and nasa to get the machine in place.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#49

Post by MrMan »

michaelochurch wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear about Google doing some genuine technology, it just makes me a million times more fucking angry to compare what Google must be like if you're a Real Googler (machine learning projects, basic research, quantum computing, meaningful work) to the misery that the other 90% endure. I feel like this should be much more of an HR problem than it seems to be. Whenever it comes out that Google's real members ar…

google has done a great job so far of serving their customers and shareholders. do you have any evidence that forcing open-allocation on google as a whole will improve the results they are able to deliver?

are you a Real Googler by any chance?

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#50

Post by dave_sullivan »

mike_ivanov wrote: post #47

"Quantum" is a bit of buzzword in a sense that people understand it in a very narrow sense. D-Wave's system is NOT a "classical" qubit-based quantum computer. What it does is essentially global optimization of multimode functions using quantum effects.

True, but significantly faster global optimization of multimode functions by any means turns out to be pretty useful for exactly the types of ML problems that are stretching the limits of current hardware. This seems like a promising first step towards technology that could be really useful if it comes anywhere close to doing what it claims.
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