3 ms·

The downvoting is hilarious: nobody can actually say what I’m wrong about, and the one person who tried agreed with me, but you’re here downvoting because you’r

The downvoting is hilarious: nobody can actually say what I’m wrong about, and the one person who tried agreed with me, but you’re here downvoting because you’re sure you’re experts. If you were really smarter than me at QM, you’d be able to point out what was wrong with what I said. The HN downvotes without correction really speak to the hubris around here.

nine_k 6y ago
You are theoretically correct. But we haven't yet attained practical command of the ideas, haven't turned them into technologies. Because of that, any level of detail is about as believable as any sci—fi. In practice, things may end unattainable in the form we currently imagine them, and anything along the lines most likely will not be very similar, except in deepest principles. We can conservatively say that even though there is a limit to amount of computation produced in a given volume, temperature range, and time, this limit is still sky-high compared to what we do now. OTOH the speed of light is already a major limiting factor.
- bopbeepboop 6y ago
  Sure — as you say though, we’re far off that limit. There’s plenty of room for limited exponential growth in its intelligence. There’s a number of facts that make this not sci-fi: - China has demonstrated distributed quantum networks. - The US has demonstrated distributed quantum calculations. - Anyons were recently experimentally verified. - We have a number of small quantum ALU. - There are quantum-effect systems in production, just not fully-entangled systems. - We have quantum ML algorithms for accelerated training. Nobody has disputed my baseline estimate: that humans will complete a quantum computer in 10-20 years. (If people just disagree there, they should say so.) However, once you accept that, it’s trivial to see the following sequence: - AI is slightly smarter than humans, does quantum work 2-5x faster. - AI develops quantum circuits in 2-4 years that would have taken 10-20 for humans. (See COVID vaccines for power of tech acceleration.) - Those quantum systems let the AI replace its current systems with faster local ones. - The AI uses another 1-2 years at this intermediate stage to extend current quantum networking research to unify its quantum data centers into a single computer, giving full global entanglement. So in 3-5 years, an AI which starts off mildly smarter could finish nearly-done projects and enter an exponential growth curve before we do. That progression looks like: - Scale M AI. - Scale M/K * 2^K, where K is the portion of M at a single data center. - Scale 2^M AI, when it can fully entangle. > Because of that, any level of detail is about as believable as any sci—fi. That’s not true: most major companies in the space have labs looking to turn fundamental research into products, which is the exact opposite of sci-fi. I think people just haven’t actually thought about this and are responding with fallacies rather than confront an idea they intuitively reject. Even though I’m right on the technical issues involved.

nine_k 6y ago

You are theoretically correct. But we haven't yet attained practical command of the ideas, haven't turned them into technologies. Because of that, any level of detail is about as believable as any sci—fi. In practice, things may end unattainable in the form we currently imagine them, and anything along the lines most likely will not be very similar, except in deepest principles. We can conservatively say that even though there is a limit to amount of computation produced in a given volume, temperature range, and time, this limit is still sky-high compared to what we do now. OTOH the speed of light is already a major limiting factor.

bopbeepboop 6y ago
Sure — as you say though, we’re far off that limit. There’s plenty of room for limited exponential growth in its intelligence. There’s a number of facts that make this not sci-fi: - China has demonstrated distributed quantum networks. - The US has demonstrated distributed quantum calculations. - Anyons were recently experimentally verified. - We have a number of small quantum ALU. - There are quantum-effect systems in production, just not fully-entangled systems. - We have quantum ML algorithms for accelerated training. Nobody has disputed my baseline estimate: that humans will complete a quantum computer in 10-20 years. (If people just disagree there, they should say so.) However, once you accept that, it’s trivial to see the following sequence: - AI is slightly smarter than humans, does quantum work 2-5x faster. - AI develops quantum circuits in 2-4 years that would have taken 10-20 for humans. (See COVID vaccines for power of tech acceleration.) - Those quantum systems let the AI replace its current systems with faster local ones. - The AI uses another 1-2 years at this intermediate stage to extend current quantum networking research to unify its quantum data centers into a single computer, giving full global entanglement. So in 3-5 years, an AI which starts off mildly smarter could finish nearly-done projects and enter an exponential growth curve before we do. That progression looks like: - Scale M AI. - Scale M/K * 2^K, where K is the portion of M at a single data center. - Scale 2^M AI, when it can fully entangle. > Because of that, any level of detail is about as believable as any sci—fi. That’s not true: most major companies in the space have labs looking to turn fundamental research into products, which is the exact opposite of sci-fi. I think people just haven’t actually thought about this and are responding with fallacies rather than confront an idea they intuitively reject. Even though I’m right on the technical issues involved.