3 ms·

I'm not ignoring that, I'm just treating it exactly as it is: very unlikely. All sorts of things could happen, but what could happen - independent of quantifiab

• lisper 8y ago
  > what could happen - independent of quantifiable likelihood - is not a realistic baseline for a risk modeling exercise. Except in the case where the result of a low-likelihood event is potentially catastrophic, c.f. Fukushima.
  • throwawaymath 8y ago
    That's not comparable. Fukushima's failure was due to fairly basic and straightforward precautions being in error or missing entirely. In other words they were avoidable, known knowns. In contrast we do not actually know how to achieve a breakthrough in quantum error correction except through the normal course of research. We don't just have known unknowns presenting obstacles to the path forward, we have unknown unknowns which must be resolved before further breakthroughs can be achieved. For that reason postulating when and how we'll have a giant leap forward in quantum error correction is closer to thinking about how to resolve the Riemann Hypothesis or Navier-Stokes, or when a deadly asteroid might finally be on a collision path with Earth. It's reasonable to be concerned about quantum computing's risk to cryptography, but it's infeasible to productively model whether or not we'll suddenly jump forwards by decades in research time. To state this another way: if the most informed thing you can state about the likelihood of an event is that it could happen, it's probably not feasible to model the likelihood of that event in a way that makes risk assessment productive.