Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Willow, Our Quantum Chip

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 557 posts

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#41

Post by wazdra »

christkv wrote: post #14
nuz wrote: post #4

Every time this comes up people say they're not actually useful for ML. Is that true? And if not what would they be useful for

In principal NP complete problems is my guess.

It is unknown whether quantum computing makes NP-complete problems easier to solve. There is a complexity class for problems that can be solved "efficiently" on using quantum computing, called BQP. How BQP and NP are related is unknown. In particular, if an NP-complete problem was shown to be solvable efficiently with Quantum Computing (and thus in BQP), this open (and hard) research question would be solved (or at least half of it).

Note that BQP is not "efficient" in a real-word fashion, but for theoretical study of Quantum computing, it's a good first guess

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#42

Post by vessenes »

korkybuchek wrote: post #31
jawns wrote: post #8

> It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse I see the evidence, and I see the conclusion, but there's a lot of ellipses between the evidence and the conclusion. Do quantum computing folks really think that we are borrowing capacity from other universes for these calculations?

> Do quantum computing folks really think that we are borrowing capacity from other universes for these calculations? Tangentially related, but there's a great Asimov book about this called The Gods Themselves (fiction).

I’m partial to Anathem by Stephenson on this topic as well

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#43

Post by wasabi991011 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #20
gaze wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm upset they put this in because this is absolutely not the view of most quantum foundations researchers.

the everettian view is absolutely not the view? i am not so sure. or you mean specifically the parallel computation view?

In my opinion the "shut up and calculate" view is the most common among actual quantum computing researchers.

Unsure about those working on quantum foundations, but I think the absence of consensus is enough to claim any view as absolutely not the view.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#44

Post by rafram »

klipt wrote: post #21
gaze wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm upset they put this in because this is absolutely not the view of most quantum foundations researchers.

Soon: "are alien universes slowing down your internet? Click here to learn more!" Reminds me of the Aorist Rods from Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

Well there has to be some reason I'm not getting the "gigabit" speeds I was quoted.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#45

Post by vessenes »

rdtsc wrote: post #27

The main part for me is reducing error faster as they scale. This was a major road-block, known as "below threshold”. That's a major achievement. I am not sure about RCS as the benchmark as not sure how useful that is in practice. It just produced really nice numbers. If I had a few billions of pocket change around, would I buy this to run RCS really fast? -Nah, probably not. I'll get more excited when they factor nu…

The implication seems to be that they can implement other gates. As my gen z kids say: huge if true.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#46

Post by deanCommie »

I don't want to judge people by their cover, but I want to confess to having those feelings right now.

In this day and age, I feel an immediate sense of distrust to any technologist with the "Burning Man" aesthetic for lack of a better word. (which you can see in the author's wikipedia profile from an adjacent festival -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartmut_Neven, as well as in this blog itself with his wristbands and sunglasses -> https://youtu.be/l_KrC1mzd0g?si=HQdB3NSsLBPTSv-B&t=39)

In the 2000's, any embracement of alternative culture was a breath of fresh air for technologists - it showed they cared about the human element of society as much as the mathematics.

But nowadays, especially in a post-truthiness, post-COVID world, it comes off in a different way to me. Our world is now filled with quasi-scientific cults. From flat earthers to anti-vaxxers, to people focused on "healing crystals", to the resurgence of astrology.

I wouldn't be saying this about anyone in a more shall we say "classical" domain. As a technologist, your claims are pretty easily verifiable and testable, even on fuzzy areas like large language models.

But in the Quantum world? I immediately start to approach the author of this with distrust:

* He's writing about multiverses

* He's claiming a quantum performance for something that would take a classical computer septillions of years.

I'm a layman in this domain. If these were true, should they be front page news on CNN and the BBC? Or is this just how technology breakthroughs start (after all the Transformer paper wasn't)

But no matter what I just can't help but feel like the author's choices harm the credibility of the work. Before you downvote me, consider replying instead. I'm not defending feeling this way. I'm just explaining what I feel and why.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#48

Post by whimsicalism »

wasabi991011 wrote: post #43
whimsicalism wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the everettian view is absolutely not the view? i am not so sure. or you mean specifically the parallel computation view?

In my opinion the "shut up and calculate" view is the most common among actual quantum computing researchers. Unsure about those working on quantum foundations, but I think the absence of consensus is enough to claim any view as absolutely not the view.

i don’t really view “shut up and calculate” or very restrained copenhagenism as a real view at all.

i think if you were to ask people to make a real metaphysical speculation, majority might be partial to everett - especially if they felt confident the results were anonymous

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#49

Post by whimsicalism »

gaze wrote: post #39
whimsicalism wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the everettian view is absolutely not the view? i am not so sure. or you mean specifically the parallel computation view?

sorry -- the results don't add weight to one view or the other. The interpretations are equivalent.

not metaphysically equivalent. also, i’m not so certain it will always be untestable. i would have thought the same thing about hidden variables but i underestimated the cleverness of experimentalists

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#50

Post by pandemic_region »

> Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years — a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe.

What computation would that be?

Also, what is the relationship, if any, between quantum computing and AI? Are these technologies complementary?

Post reply on HN