Fire Discovered Again
Google claims a computing breakthrough
The company said today that it had achieved “quantum supremacy,” a milestone that would make current supercomputers look like toys.
At a research lab in California, a mathematical calculation that the largest supercomputers could not complete in under 10,000 years was done in 3 minutes 20 seconds, Google said in a paper in the science journal Nature.
Background: Our reporter Dennis Overbye explains: “Ordinary computers store data and perform computations as a series of bits that are either 1 or 0. By contrast, a quantum computer uses qubits, which can be 1 and 0 at the same time, at least until they are measured.”
What’s next: Scientists likened the announcement to the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903 — proof that something is possible even though it may be years before it can fulfill its potential.
— New York Times October 23, 2019
“It may be years before it can fulfill its potential.”
My mind shudders to imagine what that fulfilled potential might be. The first application of atomic energy were weapons that erased two cities in the blink of an eye. Humanity would be better off if we could put that genie back into the bottle. We cannot.
One thought on “Fire Discovered Again”
The old saying is that something is a double edged sword, which means, ostensibly, that an object, theory, or invention can have two very different outcomes. Yet the adage itself can also be interpreted from the standpoint that the sword in question can kill from either side. That a sword is deadly no matter which way it is wielded.
Jerry, I believe you are correct in that, even though there may be a few upsides to qubit technology, in the long run it will gain a life of its own. And perhaps in the use of artificial intelligence, it literally could become its own life form. We are once again the curious infants playing with toys where we have little or no concept of their ultimate use. What could go wrong?