3 ms·

> but DWave, IBM, Google, and every other company that currently or formerly over-promises or outright lies has drawn people out of academia into frequently se

> but DWave, IBM, Google, and every other company that currently or formerly over-promises or outright lies has drawn people out of academia into frequently senseless industrial positions. In those industrial positions, these people are afforded a place to do scientific research that is outside the university proper, but where they can still publish papers, collaborate, release the results of their research to the world, etc. I think it's valuable, as not every researcher wants to work in the confines of academia. I worked in academia myself, albeit doing far more HN-poster typical things than a researcher would do, and while it can be an amazing experience, it's also a much lower salary, and you're not at all surrounded by the same energy, sense of purpose, and rapid pace of change. You're also dealing with lower budgets and lower expectations when the goal is purely to publish papers instead of creating actual, functioning devices that are not only workable, but eventually useful (which is a pre-requisite to being profitable in the long term).

reikonomusha 5y ago
There’s some truth to what you say but I think understanding that truth requires a lot of context and nuance, which I don’t think is easy to do here on a comment forum. On the flip side, it’s not all roses in the quantum industry. There’s more pressure (implicitly and often explicitly) to demo, dazzle, and deliver on “innovation”. Mass layoffs, re-orgs, change of management, hyper-pressurized funding rounds, investor and board pressure, CEO “realignment”, etc. all happen in this sector of the quantum biz. Entire departments—even whole companies—of scientists are funded to work with “industry partners” to solve “industrial problems”, problems for which there’s no published evidence of advantage. A scientist in such a department squeezes out a paper that’s of little, and dare I say completely inconsequential value from time to time.

reikonomusha 5y ago

There’s some truth to what you say but I think understanding that truth requires a lot of context and nuance, which I don’t think is easy to do here on a comment forum. On the flip side, it’s not all roses in the quantum industry. There’s more pressure (implicitly and often explicitly) to demo, dazzle, and deliver on “innovation”. Mass layoffs, re-orgs, change of management, hyper-pressurized funding rounds, investor and board pressure, CEO “realignment”, etc. all happen in this sector of the quantum biz. Entire departments—even whole companies—of scientists are funded to work with “industry partners” to solve “industrial problems”, problems for which there’s no published evidence of advantage. A scientist in such a department squeezes out a paper that’s of little, and dare I say completely inconsequential value from time to time.