
Insert D-Wave Post Here - seycombi
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3192
======
mdekkers
...that went over my head depressingly quickly....

------
QCman
Many of the points made why successful organizations invest in new
technologies are very weak. Successful organizations got that way by making
many more smart decisions than dumb decisions.

Occam’s razor suggests that organizations investing in adiabatic quantum
computing do so for reasons the participants of this blog don’t have access
to.

------
QCman
This is what LANL has to say...

[http://www.lanl.gov/discover/publications/1663/2016-july/not...](http://www.lanl.gov/discover/publications/1663/2016-july/not-
magic-quantum.php)

------
mtgx
tl;dr Still no evidence that D-Wave's new "thousands of times faster" computer
is any faster than a classical computer, even for annealing tasks. And we'll
see if we've reached quantum supremacy when/if Google and IBM reveal their
50-qubit quantum computers in the next few years.

------
hcs
Perhaps better to link to the blog post than the blog index:
[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3192](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3192)

~~~
sctb
Thanks! We've updated the link.

------
deepnotderp
One of D-wave's founders is now trying to patent teleoperation of robots and
pass it off as "novel":
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-
intel...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-
intelligence/dwave-founder-new-startup-kindred-ai)

Also, tossing in some machine learning which I presume they're also trying to
patent (because it's not as if UC Berkeley and Google have done that 15 times
a year since 2010)....

All this makes me think they're not legit.

~~~
QCman
Here is MIT Technology Review's article on www.kindred.ai

Kindred AI is teaching robots new tasks using human virtual-reality “pilots.”
The ultimate goal is to create a new kind of artificial intelligence.

Kindred AI is teaching robots new tasks using human virtual-reality “pilots.”
The ultimate goal is to create a new kind of artificial intelligence.

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603745/how-a-human-
machin...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603745/how-a-human-machine-mind-
meld-could-make-robots-smarter/)

------
monochromatic
Sad to see a blogger I otherwise like spouting the "Trump is a Russian puppet"
propaganda.

~~~
sigmaprimus
This is not the first attack against Trump from Mr. Aaronson.
[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?cat=42](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?cat=42)
Also it seems he has a more than cozy relationship with YC so watch your
negative comments about him on this site!!

~~~
monochromatic
I'm not sure if it's virtue signaling or what--this tendency to inject "by the
way, I'm anti-Trump" into articles that have nothing to do with that subject.
It's annoying though.

Scott Aaronson is a smart guy, but I care about his politics about as much as
I care about Matt Damon's.

------
sigmaprimus
This sure sounds like sour grapes to me, arguing that a faster, or true
quantum computer will be built in a few years that will out preform Dwave's
current system is pretty weak sauce. After reading this article I can't help
but see the similarities between this article and the recent attack posts
against uber that seem to be the flavor of the day. DWave has built and sold
several functioning systems and this is what most likely puts a bullseye on
them for people to take cheap shots..just like the Uber haters. Regardless of
whether or not DWave has built a true quantum computer, or if the next
conventional computer will be faster, they are doing it now, they have found
the more effective algorithms and they are pushing the envelope. It's always
easier to criticize and whine than stick your neck out and try something new
and innovative and articles like this one show that even if you do succeed in
those endeavors the haters are going to hate. The one part of the article that
I did appreciate is the mention of Geordie Rose who was one of DWave's
founders and the fact that an ex wrestler founded such a cutting edge company
may speak volumes to the need for strong willed people in unicorn type
companies to fend off then nay sayers before they even get off the ground.

~~~
6nf
Nobody, not a single company, is using D-Wave in production for anything. It's
not a useful machine, it doesn't do anything you can't do with a much cheaper
regular computer.

Aaron knows what he's talking about, the criticism is not 'sour grapes'.

~~~
QCman
Several universities and corporations have QC R&D projects (eg. Alibaba,
Google, IBM, Microsoft); none have their QC machines in production for
anything (in fact they don't even have customers). Something to think about.

------
QCman
Here's the list of D-Wave supporters (organizations that have spent real $):
Google, NASA, Lockheed Martin, Los Alamos National Labs, University of
Southern California, Temporal Defense Systems, US government, CIA/In-Q-Tel. At
over $10M per machine, this adds up to at least $60M. Surely the critics in
this blog are missing something.

~~~
6nf
How many of those use the D-WAVE machine in production?

Zero.

Everyone are just trying to work out if they can use it for something -
anything. So far the answer is NO.

~~~
QCman
Several universities and corporations have QC R&D projects (eg. Alibaba,
Google, IBM, Microsoft); none of these corporations have customers for their
QCs.

------
grabcocque
One thing I'm never quite sure of in these discussions as to what extent
D-Wave are a bunch of shysters and to what extent they're actually honest
believers that they've built a quantum computer and that their repeated
savagings are nothing more than the reasonable expectations of sceptical
science being done.

Basically do they really believe they've built a quantum computer or do they
actually know they haven't and have decided to pretend?

~~~
Analemma_
I wonder if this was another case of engineering/marketing disconnect, and by
the time everything got sorted out they were in over their head.

Engineer: "It can use supercooled qubits to solve certain kinds of annealing
problems and-"

Marketing (and management): "It's a quantum computer?"

Engineer: "Well, no, it sort of uses quantum mechanics to to operate, but it
doesn't-"

Marketing: "For immediate release: D-Wave builds quantum computer!"

~~~
wolfgke
In this sense we can argue that Intel will perhaps soon deliver a quantum
computer since Intel is currently researching on 10nm Quantum Well Field
Transistors (QWFET) to replace FinFET transistors that are currently used:

> [http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/analyst-predicts-
> inte...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/analyst-predicts-intel-new-
> methods-moores-law/)

If we are evil marketers we can even claim _any_ computer is a quantum
computer (though not using quantum effects in an essential way - but this can
be left out), since _anything_ in the world (e.g. matter) only exists because
of the laws governing quantum physics.

~~~
TeMPOraL
If you expand your criteria to unaffiliated evil clickbait authors, you'll
surely find that, and worse. The bullcrap I've seen shared on transhumanist/AI
Facebook groups is just mind-boggling.

------
doctorpangloss
D-Wave is the original Theranos.

\- They make bold claims that many people plainly say don't make sense, before
seeing any evidence.

\- They use hype to buy time to do scientific research.

\- The successes of the D-Wave machine have the same characteristic p-hacking
profile of Theranos's Edison machine. That is, try 200 problems, and find 1
that appears to work, which could just be due to chance.

\- Apologists talk about "there are a lot of smart people working" there or
blame "marketing," but who haven't seen the product and don't know any more
than anyone else.

The main differences are (1) the lack of an enigmatic founder. (2) D-Wave
publishes, and then in later analysis their claims don't hold up.

~~~
hourislate
What would explain the interest Google, NASA and the DoD have in D-Wave and
the fact that they have acquired a few of these devices?

~~~
deepnotderp
Most of those organizations are happy to dump $1 million into something with
so much potential power on the off-chance that it turns out to work. In fact,
if I was in charge of Google, and understood the extremely tiny chance that
D-Wave is legit, I would still dump in money, because the tiny chance it works
still makes it worth it.

~~~
monktastic1
But they (in particular, Google) also have experts in quantum physics and
computing on staff, so they're much better equipped than most to determine the
validity of the claim.

