Why do more people need to be interested? Why do we need to ensure access to quantum computers to programmers? Seriously, any programmer can fire up a quantum

Why do more people need to be interested? Why do we need to ensure access to quantum computers to programmers? Seriously, any programmer can fire up a quantum simulator for any number of the quantum instruction languages and be more productive than with a real quantum computer. Because of the hype, we’ve all been led to believe that we are “ready” to program quantum machines and we just need to train more people through boot camps, hackathons, and summer schools. It’s simply not true. The quantum computers of today are programmable (barely), and the programs do run (though you can only run a dozen or so “statements” before you get junk results), but they’re so wildly bad compared to what you’d expect out of a textbook that you easily conclude “the scientists have work to do”. Scientists do have more work to do, but it seems like every month there’s a perfectly respected scientist who gets a $15MM series A and starts spouting the same misinforming junk that quantum computing is going to help FedEx with logistics, or steel mills with operations planning. Then they hire a bunch of good academic people, pay them software-engineer salaries, and string them along to help them perpetuate the fundraising machine—not by actually doing science of course—hoping to also have a quantum computer/software/applications/algorithms be built as a by-product. Money is very attractive to people, especially physicists who frequently find themselves jumping ship for an alternative, higher-paying career. There must be around 100 quantum companies now, most of them startups, and—to my knowledge—zero of them providing anything demonstrated to be a valuable commercial product. Some of them are definitely doing good work here and there, but in the bigger picture, the profit motive—whether shareholder value or venture capital returns—consistently undermines their ability to do research.