5 ms·

A New Law to Describe Quantum Computing’s Rise?

39 points by gballan 7y ago

b_tterc_p 7y ago
Nevin’s law seems to describe his hubris as well. I wonder how many on his own team are comfortable with that expression.
- smitty1e 7y ago
  Too busy carving chips out the unobtainium wafers to worry about it, one supposes.
hirundo 7y ago
If the law is true, and quantum computing is the key enabler of AGI, then the law is either the best or worst news in human history. And we may be living in the final generations of our species. Not to be dramatic. I'm kinda hoping that Nevin is an inferior prophet to Moore.
- smitty1e 7y ago
  I fail to see why the advent of qbits has to be any more apocalyptic than the transistor. "...there shall, in that time, be rumors of things going astray, errrm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things wi - with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment. At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/quotes?item=qt0979932 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/quotes?item=qt0979932
  - hirundo 7y ago
    If Nevin's law is true, then qbit computational power will grow at a doubly exponentially rate rather than simply exponentially as in Moore's law of bit pushers. That alone is apocalyptic. But that's not the qbit's only trick. They have a talent for pattern recognition that bits can't match, and pattern recognition is the key to autonomous agents. For good or ill, such agents have the power to leverage human will enormously. That has a high potential for apocalypse, and doubly exponential qbits would make that happen much sooner.
- theemathas 7y ago
  Unfortunately, you can't just throw any computer program into a quantum computer and make it fast. You need to design a quantum algorithm, which will make the quantum computer faster, but only when solving this one specific problem. Not many such quantum algorithms have been invented yet. Therefore, it is not obvious whether quantum computing will affect AI at all. Perhaps someone will figure out a new quantum algorithm for AI, but I don't think that's very likely to happen soon.
jonas_kgomo 7y ago
I always thought that the "ultimate laptop" , in other words nature, has a fundamental limit of computation due to entropy as Seth Lloyd prescribed. So we know Moore's Law isn't dead yet, crowning terms like Nevin's will create a stream of self-ordained Laws , and this will not help at all. I think it is more important to be contrarian, and be against quantum computing like Gil Kalai than push a Moore's Law narrative on mesoscopic materials. I would go against any effort to create a theory of exponentiation . I think this is such a weak paradigm since we haven't yet even figured out what a classical quantum computer would do. In a sense, quantum computing needs an upper bound due to its computational complexity rather than anticipated supremacy. https://www.quantamagazine.org/gil-kalais-argument-against-quantum-computers-20180207/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/gil-kalais-argument-against-q...
- IIAOPSW 7y ago
  IIAOPSW's law states the number of self proclaimed laws grows exponentially.
- vtomole 7y ago
  > In a sense, quantum computing needs an upper bound due to its computational complexity. You mean this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWPP_(complexity) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWPP_(complexity)
klyrs 7y ago
This is the hill that DWave died on with "Rose's Law." Make 3 chips small chips, make sweeping predictions on a log plot, call it a law. Yawn. My biggest disappointment is in Scott Aaronson. He should know the difference between making something useful and making something hard to simulate.
- IIAOPSW 7y ago
  >He should know the difference between making something useful and making something hard to simulate. You're talking about the guy who showed the computational complexity of Boson Sampling.
- vtomole 7y ago
  > He should know the difference between making something useful and making something hard to simulate. Please provide evidence of this claim.
  - klyrs 7y ago
    I said should. He's branded himself as a critic of quantum computing... this take of his gave me whiplash. Is he... gushing?
craftinator 7y ago
Quantum computing is rising? I was under the impression that is has been stagnating for like half a decade now. Can a QC finally factor 15? Like factor(15)=3*5?
- reikonomusha 7y ago
  QC can simulate molecules.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- vtomole 7y ago
  > Can a QC finally factor 15? For compiled versions of Shor's algorithm, yes. https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5707 https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5707
cohomologo 7y ago
With double exponential growth, “it looks like nothing is happening, nothing is happening, and then whoops, suddenly you’re in a different world,” Neven said. This is just a clever way to spin the fact that we are experiencing growth much slower than exponential growth now into a prediction of much faster future growth, without any evidence. Or perhaps an internal joke the physicists would make. Next time I have a really flat function, I'm going to fit it with a triple exponential like so: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+exp(exp(exp(x))),+x%3D-20..-5,+y%3D0..5
- glangdale 7y ago
  From the article: "In December 2018, scientists at Google AI ran a calculation on Google’s best quantum processor. They were able to reproduce the computation using a regular laptop. Then in January, they ran the same test on an improved version of the quantum chip. This time they had to use a powerful desktop computer to simulate the result. By February, there were no longer any classical computers in the building that could simulate their quantum counterparts. The researchers had to request time on Google’s enormous server network to do that." Now, yes, this article sounds bullshitty to the extreme - it's worrying the extent to which it manages to not quite get around to any technical detail except for helpfully explaining what exponential and double-exponential means. Number of qbits? Which algorithm? Who knows? Is it even an algorithm that anyone cares about ("ran a calculation"). Also, from long experience, I'm used to seeing the person with the "next big thing" (GPGPU, FPGA, custom ASIC, etc) always managing to creatively find mediocre algorithms on the CPU to compare it to. However - even given all that skepticism - it's hard to dismiss the growth that they are rhapsodizing about as 'flat' (assuming it's real). I suppose we'll see.
marcosdumay 7y ago
So, is there anyone besides Google with a capable quantum processor? Are they that ahead of everybody?
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  My understanding has been that neither Google nor anyone else really has a quantum processor.
  - vtomole 7y ago
    Microsoft doesn't have a quantum processor but Google has one.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      As the saying goes, I'll believe their processor is doing quantum computing when someone like Scott Aaronson says so.
      - vtomole 7y ago
        > I'll believe their processor is doing quantum computing What do you mean? Quantum processors have been doing quantum computing for a while now. That is, initializing qubits to a known state, performing quantum gates on them, then performing measurements on the qubits. The validity of these experiments have been confirmed by state tomography.
        mehrdadn 7y ago
        I haven't kept up in the past ~3 years, but as of back then (and I have not heard to the contrary thus far) there were serious doubts on whether anyone has gotten quantum speedup or not. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28641-experts-doubt-googles-claim-about-its-quantum-computers-speed/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28641-experts-doubt-g...
phkahler 7y ago
So how many Qbits are they up to? And how fast is that number increasing? Comparing to classical like this is kind of dumb since quantum is known to be exponentially faster. Or doubly or whatever. Just stop comparing and tell us how many bits.
todd8 7y ago
Two interacting factors are claimed to be responsible for Neven’s Law. The first is the exponential advantage q-bits have over regular bits according to the article. (But isn’t this the case only for some algorithms? i.e. Shore’s) The next exponential factor is stated to be the “rapid improvement of quantum processors”. Really? Is the number of q-bits in true quantum computers growing exponentially—-and not steadily, but say logarithmically? Moore’s Law was a law because it was so surprising that the semiconductor industry kept it going for so long. Is that really happening with quantum computers? I didn’t realize that breakthroughs in Q computing were happening like that.
todd8 7y ago
Double exponential growth is crazy fast, but some problem grow much faster and follow the hyperoperation sequence growth rate. Knuth wrote a fun paper in Science in 1976 [1]. (Easy & interesting but sadly my link is to a paywall.) That was the first place I saw his arrow notation to describe some of these numbers. 5↑3 = 5*(5*5) 5↑↑3 = 5↑(5↑5) 5↑↑↑3 = 5↑↑(5↑↑5) 5↑↑↑↑3 = 5(↑^4)3 These numbers get BIG, the up arrow notation can express the Ackermann function. [1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/194/4271/1235 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/194/4271/1235
ridewinter 7y ago
“Neven says that Google’s best quantum chips have recently been improving at an exponential rate.” That may be the real news here. Are there any other sources about this?

39 points by gballan 7y ago

Nevin’s law seems to describe his hubris as well. I wonder how many on his own team are comfortable with that expression.

smitty1e 7y ago
Too busy carving chips out the unobtainium wafers to worry about it, one supposes.

hirundo 7y ago

If the law is true, and quantum computing is the key enabler of AGI, then the law is either the best or worst news in human history. And we may be living in the final generations of our species. Not to be dramatic. I'm kinda hoping that Nevin is an inferior prophet to Moore.

smitty1e 7y ago
I fail to see why the advent of qbits has to be any more apocalyptic than the transistor. "...there shall, in that time, be rumors of things going astray, errrm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things wi - with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment. At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/quotes?item=qt0979932 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/quotes?item=qt0979932
- hirundo 7y ago
  If Nevin's law is true, then qbit computational power will grow at a doubly exponentially rate rather than simply exponentially as in Moore's law of bit pushers. That alone is apocalyptic. But that's not the qbit's only trick. They have a talent for pattern recognition that bits can't match, and pattern recognition is the key to autonomous agents. For good or ill, such agents have the power to leverage human will enormously. That has a high potential for apocalypse, and doubly exponential qbits would make that happen much sooner.
theemathas 7y ago
Unfortunately, you can't just throw any computer program into a quantum computer and make it fast. You need to design a quantum algorithm, which will make the quantum computer faster, but only when solving this one specific problem. Not many such quantum algorithms have been invented yet. Therefore, it is not obvious whether quantum computing will affect AI at all. Perhaps someone will figure out a new quantum algorithm for AI, but I don't think that's very likely to happen soon.

jonas_kgomo 7y ago

I always thought that the "ultimate laptop" , in other words nature, has a fundamental limit of computation due to entropy as Seth Lloyd prescribed. So we know Moore's Law isn't dead yet, crowning terms like Nevin's will create a stream of self-ordained Laws , and this will not help at all. I think it is more important to be contrarian, and be against quantum computing like Gil Kalai than push a Moore's Law narrative on mesoscopic materials. I would go against any effort to create a theory of exponentiation . I think this is such a weak paradigm since we haven't yet even figured out what a classical quantum computer would do. In a sense, quantum computing needs an upper bound due to its computational complexity rather than anticipated supremacy. https://www.quantamagazine.org/gil-kalais-argument-against-quantum-computers-20180207/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/gil-kalais-argument-against-q...

IIAOPSW 7y ago
IIAOPSW's law states the number of self proclaimed laws grows exponentially.
vtomole 7y ago
> In a sense, quantum computing needs an upper bound due to its computational complexity. You mean this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWPP_(complexity) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWPP_(complexity)

klyrs 7y ago

This is the hill that DWave died on with "Rose's Law." Make 3 chips small chips, make sweeping predictions on a log plot, call it a law. Yawn. My biggest disappointment is in Scott Aaronson. He should know the difference between making something useful and making something hard to simulate.

IIAOPSW 7y ago
>He should know the difference between making something useful and making something hard to simulate. You're talking about the guy who showed the computational complexity of Boson Sampling.
vtomole 7y ago
> He should know the difference between making something useful and making something hard to simulate. Please provide evidence of this claim.
- klyrs 7y ago
  I said should. He's branded himself as a critic of quantum computing... this take of his gave me whiplash. Is he... gushing?

craftinator 7y ago

Quantum computing is rising? I was under the impression that is has been stagnating for like half a decade now. Can a QC finally factor 15? Like factor(15)=3*5?

reikonomusha 7y ago
QC can simulate molecules.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
vtomole 7y ago
> Can a QC finally factor 15? For compiled versions of Shor's algorithm, yes. https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5707 https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5707

cohomologo 7y ago

With double exponential growth, “it looks like nothing is happening, nothing is happening, and then whoops, suddenly you’re in a different world,” Neven said. This is just a clever way to spin the fact that we are experiencing growth much slower than exponential growth now into a prediction of much faster future growth, without any evidence. Or perhaps an internal joke the physicists would make. Next time I have a really flat function, I'm going to fit it with a triple exponential like so: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+exp(exp(exp(x))),+x%3D-20..-5,+y%3D0..5

glangdale 7y ago
From the article: "In December 2018, scientists at Google AI ran a calculation on Google’s best quantum processor. They were able to reproduce the computation using a regular laptop. Then in January, they ran the same test on an improved version of the quantum chip. This time they had to use a powerful desktop computer to simulate the result. By February, there were no longer any classical computers in the building that could simulate their quantum counterparts. The researchers had to request time on Google’s enormous server network to do that." Now, yes, this article sounds bullshitty to the extreme - it's worrying the extent to which it manages to not quite get around to any technical detail except for helpfully explaining what exponential and double-exponential means. Number of qbits? Which algorithm? Who knows? Is it even an algorithm that anyone cares about ("ran a calculation"). Also, from long experience, I'm used to seeing the person with the "next big thing" (GPGPU, FPGA, custom ASIC, etc) always managing to creatively find mediocre algorithms on the CPU to compare it to. However - even given all that skepticism - it's hard to dismiss the growth that they are rhapsodizing about as 'flat' (assuming it's real). I suppose we'll see.

marcosdumay 7y ago

So, is there anyone besides Google with a capable quantum processor? Are they that ahead of everybody?

mehrdadn 7y ago
My understanding has been that neither Google nor anyone else really has a quantum processor.
- vtomole 7y ago
  Microsoft doesn't have a quantum processor but Google has one.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    As the saying goes, I'll believe their processor is doing quantum computing when someone like Scott Aaronson says so.
    - vtomole 7y ago
      > I'll believe their processor is doing quantum computing What do you mean? Quantum processors have been doing quantum computing for a while now. That is, initializing qubits to a known state, performing quantum gates on them, then performing measurements on the qubits. The validity of these experiments have been confirmed by state tomography.
      - mehrdadn 7y ago
        I haven't kept up in the past ~3 years, but as of back then (and I have not heard to the contrary thus far) there were serious doubts on whether anyone has gotten quantum speedup or not. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28641-experts-doubt-googles-claim-about-its-quantum-computers-speed/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28641-experts-doubt-g...

phkahler 7y ago

So how many Qbits are they up to? And how fast is that number increasing? Comparing to classical like this is kind of dumb since quantum is known to be exponentially faster. Or doubly or whatever. Just stop comparing and tell us how many bits.

todd8 7y ago

Two interacting factors are claimed to be responsible for Neven’s Law. The first is the exponential advantage q-bits have over regular bits according to the article. (But isn’t this the case only for some algorithms? i.e. Shore’s) The next exponential factor is stated to be the “rapid improvement of quantum processors”. Really? Is the number of q-bits in true quantum computers growing exponentially—-and not steadily, but say logarithmically? Moore’s Law was a law because it was so surprising that the semiconductor industry kept it going for so long. Is that really happening with quantum computers? I didn’t realize that breakthroughs in Q computing were happening like that.

todd8 7y ago

Double exponential growth is crazy fast, but some problem grow much faster and follow the hyperoperation sequence growth rate. Knuth wrote a fun paper in Science in 1976 [1]. (Easy & interesting but sadly my link is to a paywall.) That was the first place I saw his arrow notation to describe some of these numbers. 5↑3 = 5*(5*5) 5↑↑3 = 5↑(5↑5) 5↑↑↑3 = 5↑↑(5↑↑5) 5↑↑↑↑3 = 5(↑^4)3 These numbers get BIG, the up arrow notation can express the Ackermann function. [1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/194/4271/1235 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/194/4271/1235

ridewinter 7y ago

“Neven says that Google’s best quantum chips have recently been improving at an exponential rate.” That may be the real news here. Are there any other sources about this?