
Quantum computing as a field is obvious bullshit - smsm42
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/quantum-computing-as-a-field-is-obvious-bullshit/
======
gaze
Disclaimer: I'm near the end of a PhD in experimental quantum computing.

I'm not sure what he means very little progress... we're entangling over long
distances, we're doing practical error correction, we're reaching really long
coherence times. More importantly, we've seen exponential progress in
coherence times over time. Moore's law-like progress. Quantum computing has
also had the side benefit of generating obviously practical results like ultra
wide bandwidth, high dynamic range quantum limited amplifiers, and debatably
practical but stunning fundamental results like reversing a quantum jump in
real time by feedback. This is all recent. Quantum computing research has
exploded in the last 10 years. The blog post just sounds like some dude that
doesn't really understand physics, didn't do a thorough literature search,
didn't really even look at recent news articles, who pats himself on the back
for being a real practical business guy instead of a Quantum Physics PhD,
because some Quantum Physics PhD served him food or something and thus they
must all be floundering. He then goes on to poorly explain why quantum
computing is really really hard and therefore we shouldn't be spending money
on it. Poorly I say because he can't even seem to explain properly one of MANY
proposed implementations of a quantum computer. One that isn't even
particularly popular anymore. I really think he just woke up angry and wrote
this.

Nearly having finished a PhD in quantum computing, I wouldn't say the skills
I'm most proud of I picked up are my understanding of quantum mechanics... I'm
now an expert in low noise microwave electronics, high speed feedback control,
cryogenics. Some of which are practically useful skills, some of which are
highly applicable towards better understanding of the natural world in ways
that I think the author would even agree are worthwhile. So no, my life hasn't
been wasted and my career hasn't been ruined.

~~~
scottlocklin
"my life hasn't been wasted and my career hasn't been ruined"

Talk to me in 10 years when you're not bringing me a steak for a living.

FWIIW I went to a Gordon conference on this in the 90s, and literally, the
capabilities of quantum computers have not changed since then. Zero. None.
There has been no "Moore's law like progress." There hasn't been any! That's
the point! There's been more progress in interstellar space flight than
quantum computing (I dunno, White-Juday is at least a good try), but at least
warp drive creators aren't trying to convince people like you to ruin your
lives.

~~~
gaze
[https://imgur.com/a/HCJ7hLq](https://imgur.com/a/HCJ7hLq)

Again, exponential progress in coherence time.

~~~
scottlocklin
Well, for one thing, consultants who can see through baloney like that are
extremely valuable to people in business.

You ever look at Haroche's 1996 argument against QC? You should go have a
look.

~~~
gaze
Read it. Pretty stale take, which it would be for being 23 years old.

~~~
scottlocklin
Have any of his concerns been addressed? Do you, for example, have a pithy
rejoinder to the idea that manipulating an exponential number of states to any
degree of precision is kind of impossible?

------
drdeca
The amount of insults per line compared to the number of actual points per
line convinced me that this probably didn't make any noteworthy points.

"Quantum computing hasn't been practically useful yet!" Yes, we know that;
thank you for your valuable insight.

You'd think that it would actually comment on the claims made of late, about
BosonSampling and whatnot, but as far as I could tell, nope!

~~~
Libbum
Agreed. Seems like the author had enough education on the subject to be able
to form an opinion that sounds credible enough, but lacked the capability to
hammer the point home.

Sure, many of the points made are valid - work is still ongoing. Progress
however, has been staggering. Ignore the whole quantum computer aspect, and
you still have condenser matter, nanomanufacturing, optics, material science,
modelling, dilution refrigeration, metrology and many other fields that
directly benefit from the funding that's going into quantum computing at the
moment.

~~~
scottlocklin
So like, if I claim I can build a perpetual motion machine in a dilution
refrigerator, everything is great because "dilution refrigerator."

FWIIW I sat next to a dilution refrigerator in a lab in 1991 -can you name any
significant improvements in them which came from QC funding?

~~~
Libbum
I don't think the combative stance helps your argument at all. You know I
didn't mean that.

In answer to your question: certainly.

First of all: the sample volume, total number of microwave lines and resulting
cooling power have all been massively increased in standard dilution fridges
so that the modern quantum computing experiments can fit in. Even if you don't
care about phase qubits, but are interested in something else that needs to
run at mK temperatures, you're going to have a better time now rather than 30
years back.

More importantly though I'd say isolation has drastically improved. Even at
4mK you can get infra red photons breaking apart Cooper-pairs: forming
additional quasiparticles. That noise interferes with any qubit in the fridge.
These infra red photons were originating from the fridge itself before this
issue was fixed. We would never have identified this issue without studying
the high sensitivity of qubits to quasiparticle creation.

Finally, if you don't think that these advances are significant enough, then I
don't think you're just having a dig at quantum computing, you've got an issue
with the progress of science as a whole.

~~~
scottlocklin
"Combative stance?" Do you think I should be more collaborative in pointing
out that quantum computing is a bullshit field? This sort of mealy mouthed
attitude is how such nonsense has grown and thrived in the first place. This
subject should have been laughed to scorn in 96.

You're right: I have an issue with the progress of science as a whole, though
I particularly take issue with "quantum computing" being considered science or
technology or much of anything beyond play acting with liquid nitrogen. On the
upside, nothing I learned in school is likely to be out of date ... for the
rest of my life!

For the sake of lolz, please characterize this massive increase in cooling
power using ratios. I could have missed something.

------
currymj
In the spirit of charity I wish there were a version of this post that didn’t
seem like it was written after injecting some strange cocktail of anabolic
steroids and cocaine.

Maybe there are some good or at least interestingly wrong arguments but I find
myself incapable of looking past the rhetoric.

~~~
benmcnelly
Right, much like discussing political maters, when discussing important
things; compassion and easily digestible chunks of information go farther.
It's OK to be passionate and certainly OK to call things out, but for the most
part I think the only people who are able to look past the rhetoric are people
who already agree with its position.

------
ivan_ah
For people who think this post is too much of a rant (not me; I like it),
perhaps this article might provide a more interesting read:
[https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-
talk/computing/hardware/the-u...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-
talk/computing/hardware/the-us-national-academies-reports-on-the-prospects-
for-quantum-computing) which summary of the finding of the national academy of
sciences report which can be downloaded from here
[https://www.nap.edu/download/25196](https://www.nap.edu/download/25196)

Personally, I'm all for more progress on quantum information science topics,
but I think it will be better for the field if we rein in some of the claims
about the potential for the technology, and the timeframe when it will become
practical.

------
mimixco
One glaring fact in support of the original post is that even the companies
who make quantum computers don't claim that they are useful for solving any
real problems. The problems that they can "solve" have to be constructed to
fit within the limits of the machine.

In other words, quantum computers are less powerful than Turing machines which
can solve any problem that any computer can ever solve -- including one's we
haven't seen yet.

~~~
scottlocklin
That certainly doesn't seem to be true to the average layman:

[http://www.dbta.com/Editorial/News-Flashes/IBM-Unveils-
Quant...](http://www.dbta.com/Editorial/News-Flashes/IBM-Unveils-Quantum-
Computing-System-for-Commercial-Use-129421.aspx)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2019/01/17/ibm-l...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2019/01/17/ibm-
lattice-cryptography-is-needed-now-to-defend-against-quantum-computing-
future/)

[https://www.openpr.com/news/1516739/Quantum-Computing-
Market...](https://www.openpr.com/news/1516739/Quantum-Computing-Market-
Global-Size-and-Demand-By-Top-Key-Players-Like-D-Wave-Systems-QxBranch-LLC-QC-
Ware-Corp-and-Others-2017-2022.html)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/gemmamilne/2019/01/14/the-
inves...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/gemmamilne/2019/01/14/the-investor-
view-what-does-2019-hold-for-european-quantum-computing-startups)

[http://techgenix.com/quantum-computing-cloud/](http://techgenix.com/quantum-
computing-cloud/)

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/08/daily-crunch-the-age-of-
qu...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/08/daily-crunch-the-age-of-quantum-
computing-is-here/)

[http://discovermagazine.com/2019/jan/quantum-
supremacy](http://discovermagazine.com/2019/jan/quantum-supremacy)

[https://jaxenter.com/quantum-computing-cryptography-
security...](https://jaxenter.com/quantum-computing-cryptography-
security-153415.html)

[https://gizmodo.com/us-passes-bill-to-inject-1-2-billion-
int...](https://gizmodo.com/us-passes-bill-to-inject-1-2-billion-into-the-
quantum-1831321469)

~~~
mimixco
Yes, they're very good at getting PR... but read what they put on their actual
sites. These computers are expensive toys for research purposes.

The goal is to find out if quantum computers can ever be useful for real world
problems. I'm with the OP; they can't.

~~~
scottlocklin
Where do you think the PR comes from? Most of them put these links on their
sites; for example, Rigetti:
[https://www.rigetti.com/news](https://www.rigetti.com/news)

Doesn't matter: everyone, literally everyone, is acting like this is just
around the corner and RSA and friends are near doom. There needs to be more
skepticism.

~~~
mimixco
PR comes from PR companies. A great book on this topic is "Toxic Sludge Is
Good For You," which I highly recommend. PR is designed for mass consumption.

If you poke around in the documentation on their websites which is designed
for developers, you'll see that these computers cannot be used for general
problem solving, which any computer (a Raspberry Pi, for example) can.

If you go further and actually sign up for a trial account on these services
(which I have done), you'll find that the "problems" they can solve are quite
contrived and, as the OP points out, only consist of issues where the
programmer already knows the solution.

Quantum computers are not as useful as a Raspberry Pi. That's it in a
nutshell.

------
yifanlu
Assuming everything he says is 100% true. Why can’t some people just work on
things that interest them because they interest them? Why does everything need
to be “useful” (as in useful right here right now)? Okay resource is finite
and has to be allocated. But so what? What’s the point of science and
technology if not to enable others to have a more meaningful life? For some,
that meaning is in exploring “useless” problems. Let the people who want to
make better classical computers do so. Let people who want to study quantum
computers do so. I can assure you that the number of people who study/work on
quantum computers is so low that convincing all of them to drop their work and
do something more “practical” will not make the world a better place.

~~~
scottlocklin
Everything I said is 100% true. Citation: nobody has found an error yet.

I think it would be great if people took this up as a hobby. I don't even mind
wasting VC on stuff like this, and said so. I object to researchers selling
this to young scientists as a potential career. It's not! It is a glass bead
game, and acting like it isn't is the moral equivalent of fraud.

------
flashgordon
I normally go through HN comments before I decide to read the article. And so
I decided to read it indeed to see how it could possibly be this bad. Wow!
Just imagine how much different the article would have been if the author had
just posted his misunderstandings as "hey I tried googling but did not
understand these points, can an expert in the field help me understand the
following...?". A world to live in indeed!

------
craftinator
In everything I've read about quantum computing, I've always had nagging
doubts about the actual engineering details required to make a QC a viable
means of solving computing limitations. The original article sums all of these
doubts up, and expounds on them. Can anyone who has actually worked on QC's
offer an experiential rebuttle to the author's claims?

~~~
craftinator
Addendum: I think most reasonable people reading these comments can agree that
the author is hostile to the topic, bordering on being an asshole, and he
probably knows this. However, this has NO impact on his assertions. They are
good, especially the references to older arguments against the potential of
QC's, which still seem quite valid.

------
nairboon
_" He also noticed that instead of making progress down fruitful lanes or
improving detailed knowledge of important areas, most develop enthusiasms for
the latest non-experimental wank fest; complexity theory, network theory,
noodle theory."_

What exactly is the issue with complexity and network theory?

------
jacknews
A finance guy calling out physicists for wasting resources and doing useless
work?

Whether quantum computing research will deliver anything useful soon or not
(it won't), I think the picture at the end sums up the author's attitude
nicely.

