6 ms·

I don't know why people overlook the progress IBM seems to have made in the quantum computing world. Perhaps not as impressive as Google's progress but impressi

I don't know why people overlook the progress IBM seems to have made in the quantum computing world. Perhaps not as impressive as Google's progress but impressive none the less.

derefr 7y ago
For me personally, it was because even from the inside at IBM, you wouldn't hear much about what the quantum folks are doing if you were doing general tech. They really are in their own little world. I don't think they were even in the whole-IBM Slack team, though they might just have been security-compartmentalized with ACLs.
- q_eng_anon 7y ago
  its compartmentalized - even within the q team although qiskit is open source so literally anyone can look at the GitHub and get a pretty good idea of what's going on
bronson 7y ago
Two reasons I can think of: - "seems to have made" is important. A decade ago, Watson seemed to be a lot of progress in the AI world. - Where's the revenue?
- StylusEater 7y ago
  Revenue is but a single dimension when attempting to quantify “progress.”
- MR4D 7y ago
  Watson has become IBM's Clippy....it never came close to living up to expectations.
  - mark-r 7y ago
    That's being unfair to Clippy. I expected Clippy to be an annoying joke that wouldn't last long, and my expectations were met perfectly.
    - machinecoffee 7y ago
      Well, clippy didn't last long (although I miss the cat a bit), but the clippy jokes seem to have lasted forever.
jimbokun 7y ago
That's great and all, but will that be a product with real revenue in the forseeable future? Could be Watson all over again. Amazing technology demo, but no viable business plan behind it.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Watson wasn't an amazing technology demo.
  - abraxas 7y ago
    Was Watson just smoke and mirrors? Have there been other systems in the NLP space that eclipsed it? Genuinely asking because I don't know much background behind the story of Watson's rise and fall.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      Watson didn't rise or fall, it was the centerpiece in IBM's marketing campaign, which worked for a while before they moved on. It never got beyond or matched the state of the art in anything, that wasn't the point, it got the name "Watson" on TV. IBM wanted to prove that they employed smart people, so they hired some smart people and had them write a computer program to play Jeopardy. Did it matter that it had nothing to do with anything they were selling? Perhaps only IBM has those figures.
      - abraxas 7y ago
        OK fine but there was _some_ non trivial technology behind the system that won the Jeopardy game. What I'm asking is whether what seemed like the state of the art NLP system at the time got eclipsed by newer and better systems or whether the whole thing was never really a state of the art NLP system to begin with.
        Spooky23 7y ago
        The problem with Watson is that they don't have a business case. IBM sent salespeople to big customers with big problems and tried to find things to fix. In some cases, they did. But most of the time, the insurance companies, government agencies, etc they do business with scratched their heads and didn't do anything. Learning new things about their data might be seen as a threat to whatever enterprise bullshit they do! The problem is you have companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, etc have problems that this tech solves. It's easier to come up with a product with a problem that you understand. I can ask Google Photos or Siri to show me pictures of my dog in the snow in 2015, and they do. So I give Google & Apple money to store my crap. Google and Facebook use AI with all of the data they hoover up to peddle products to me. My grandparents get ads for depends, I get ads for drones, Google and Facebook make $. Now, companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google can go to companies that were prospected by IBM with solutions. Microsoft is minting money with ATP, because enterprise security teams suck. Amazon is selling creepy facial recognition to people, because people see it on TV, have a Ring doorbell, and want the capability. Google is selling GIS solutions, etc based on work done on maps.
Der_Einzige 7y ago
The "progress" made is entirely marketing and will have no impact on making quantum computing a reality for individual users.
Koshkin 7y ago
But "quantum computing world" is exceedingly small in size right now...

I don't know why people overlook the progress IBM seems to have made in the quantum computing world. Perhaps not as impressive as Google's progress but impressive none the less.

derefr 7y ago

For me personally, it was because even from the inside at IBM, you wouldn't hear much about what the quantum folks are doing if you were doing general tech. They really are in their own little world. I don't think they were even in the whole-IBM Slack team, though they might just have been security-compartmentalized with ACLs.

q_eng_anon 7y ago
its compartmentalized - even within the q team although qiskit is open source so literally anyone can look at the GitHub and get a pretty good idea of what's going on

bronson 7y ago

Two reasons I can think of: - "seems to have made" is important. A decade ago, Watson seemed to be a lot of progress in the AI world. - Where's the revenue?

StylusEater 7y ago
Revenue is but a single dimension when attempting to quantify “progress.”
MR4D 7y ago
Watson has become IBM's Clippy....it never came close to living up to expectations.
- mark-r 7y ago
  That's being unfair to Clippy. I expected Clippy to be an annoying joke that wouldn't last long, and my expectations were met perfectly.
  - machinecoffee 7y ago
    Well, clippy didn't last long (although I miss the cat a bit), but the clippy jokes seem to have lasted forever.

jimbokun 7y ago

That's great and all, but will that be a product with real revenue in the forseeable future? Could be Watson all over again. Amazing technology demo, but no viable business plan behind it.

whatshisface 7y ago
Watson wasn't an amazing technology demo.
- abraxas 7y ago
  Was Watson just smoke and mirrors? Have there been other systems in the NLP space that eclipsed it? Genuinely asking because I don't know much background behind the story of Watson's rise and fall.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Watson didn't rise or fall, it was the centerpiece in IBM's marketing campaign, which worked for a while before they moved on. It never got beyond or matched the state of the art in anything, that wasn't the point, it got the name "Watson" on TV. IBM wanted to prove that they employed smart people, so they hired some smart people and had them write a computer program to play Jeopardy. Did it matter that it had nothing to do with anything they were selling? Perhaps only IBM has those figures.
    - abraxas 7y ago
      OK fine but there was _some_ non trivial technology behind the system that won the Jeopardy game. What I'm asking is whether what seemed like the state of the art NLP system at the time got eclipsed by newer and better systems or whether the whole thing was never really a state of the art NLP system to begin with.
      - Spooky23 7y ago
        The problem with Watson is that they don't have a business case. IBM sent salespeople to big customers with big problems and tried to find things to fix. In some cases, they did. But most of the time, the insurance companies, government agencies, etc they do business with scratched their heads and didn't do anything. Learning new things about their data might be seen as a threat to whatever enterprise bullshit they do! The problem is you have companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, etc have problems that this tech solves. It's easier to come up with a product with a problem that you understand. I can ask Google Photos or Siri to show me pictures of my dog in the snow in 2015, and they do. So I give Google & Apple money to store my crap. Google and Facebook use AI with all of the data they hoover up to peddle products to me. My grandparents get ads for depends, I get ads for drones, Google and Facebook make $. Now, companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google can go to companies that were prospected by IBM with solutions. Microsoft is minting money with ATP, because enterprise security teams suck. Amazon is selling creepy facial recognition to people, because people see it on TV, have a Ring doorbell, and want the capability. Google is selling GIS solutions, etc based on work done on maps.

Der_Einzige 7y ago

The "progress" made is entirely marketing and will have no impact on making quantum computing a reality for individual users.

Koshkin 7y ago

But "quantum computing world" is exceedingly small in size right now...