alt Hacker NewsI don't want to judge people by their cover, but I want to confess to having those feelings right now.
In this day and age, I feel an immediate sense of distrust to any technologist with the "Burning Man" aesthetic for lack of a better word. (which you can see in the author's wikipedia profile from an adjacent festival -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartmut_Neven, as well as in this blog itself with his wristbands and sunglasses -> https://youtu.be/l_KrC1mzd0g?si=HQdB3NSsLBPTSv-B&t=39)
In the 2000's, any embracement of alternative culture was a breath of fresh air for technologists - it showed they cared about the human element of society as much as the mathematics.
But nowadays, especially in a post-truthiness, post-COVID world, it comes off in a different way to me. Our world is now filled with quasi-scientific cults. From flat earthers to anti-vaxxers, to people focused on "healing crystals", to the resurgence of astrology.
I wouldn't be saying this about anyone in a more shall we say "classical" domain. As a technologist, your claims are pretty easily verifiable and testable, even on fuzzy areas like large language models.
But in the Quantum world? I immediately start to approach the author of this with distrust:
* He's writing about multiverses
* He's claiming a quantum performance for something that would take a classical computer septillions of years.
I'm a layman in this domain. If these were true, should they be front page news on CNN and the BBC? Or is this just how technology breakthroughs start (after all the Transformer paper wasn't)
But no matter what I just can't help but feel like the author's choices harm the credibility of the work. Before you downvote me, consider replying instead. I'm not defending feeling this way. I'm just explaining what I feel and why.
Replies
> I immediately start to approach the author of this with distrust:
> * He's writing about multiverses
> * He's claiming a quantum performance for something that would take a classical computer septillions of years.
> I'm a layman in this domain
I think your skepticism is well-founded. But as you learn more about the field, you learn what parts are marketing/hype bullshit, and what parts are not, and how to translate from the bullshit to the underlying facts.
IMO:
> He's writing about multiverses
The author's pet theory, no relevance to the actual science being done.
* He's claiming a quantum performance for something that would take a classical computer septillions of years.
The classical computer is running a very naive algorithm, basically brute-force. It is very easy to write a classical algorithm which is very slow. But still, in the field, it takes new state-of-the-art classical algorithms run on medium size clusters to get results that are on-par with recent quantum computers. Not even much better, just on-par.
> Or is this just how technology breakthroughs start (after all the Transformer paper wasn't)
You could say that. It's not truly a breakthrough, but it is one more medium-size step in a rapidly advancing field.
The hall of great scientists is packed with holders of strange beliefs. Half of Newton's writings were on religious speculation, alchemy, and the occult. One of Einstein's very favorite books was Blavatsky's "Isis Unveiled". Just about every key person in early QM was deep into the Vedas. Kary Mullis was an AIDS denialist, and questioned the utility of his own test as a virus detector. If you really think about it, you will see that this phenomenon arises more from necessity than coincidence.
I know Hartmut Neven personally and professionally, and have for decades. He's not anything like you claim he is. Attacking him for wearing a wristband? That's an ad hominem attack, and not worthy of my time to counter you on.
The fact is that "Burners" are everywhere, nothing about Burning Man means someone is automatically a quack. Your distrust seems misplaced and colored by your own personal biases. The list of prominent people in tech that are also "burners" would likely shock you. I doubt you've ever been to Burning Man, but you're going to judge people who have? Maybe you're just feeling a little bit too "square" and are threatened by people who live differently than you do.
Yes, Hartmut has a style, yes, he enjoys his lifestyle, no, he's not a quack. You don't have to believe me, and I don't expect that you will, but I've talked at length with him about his work, and about a great many other topics, and he is not as you think he is.
Your comment here says far more about you than it says about Hartmut Neven.
The quantum performance thing is real, but that the random circuit sampling problem they are tabling as the benchmark here is for a quantum circuit.
So really what is being claimed is that classical computers can't easily simulate quantum ones. But is that really surprising?
What would be surprising would be that kind of speedup vs classical on some kind of general optimization algorithm. I don't think that is what they are claiming though, even if it does kind of seem like it's being presented that way.
I don't share your mistrust of the aesthetic, but I think it's pretty natural to be skeptical of the out-group, so to speak, doubly so if you have no practical way of verifying their claims. At least you're honest about it!
I guess something to think about it that amongst a group like the "burners" there is huge variety in individual experience and skill. And even within a single human mind it's possible to have radically groundbreaking thoughts in one domain, and simultaneously be a total crack-pot in another. Linus Pauling and the vitamin C thing comes to mind. There's no such thing as an average person!
I guess we'll see what the quantum experts have to say about this in the weeks to come =)