The Shape of Things to Come
or
Why you will never have a true quantum laptop computer.
Are there ever really any breaks between meetings to think about this stuff?
Looking to the skies and seeing a futuristic armada of planes fill the sky with full grainy 16bit grayscale and upon the collective landing, the past, present and futures leaders: John Cabal of the new world organization called: “Wings Over the World”, a child’s imagination manifests a dream that technology can bring order and enlightenment to all…
In this 1936 futurist allegorical movie (based upon the H.G. Wells Story), Raymond Massey, in the dual role of John and Oswald Cabal (progenitor and future grandson), brings the works and word of enlightenment from technology, cast from engineers and mechanics to the remaining pockets of despots and their crimes against human kind, indulgences, not of the graces, but more as archetypes of the seven deadly sins.
Fond memories as I grew up were the Sci-Fi movies of the late 50’s60’s and with this gem from the 30’s, and in retrospect, a classic, well ahead of its time. As is, and almost equally applicable, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis…In its many political and social themes the one of most interest was the human to machine transmogrification. If all our ills and hopes could be alleviated or humans elevated to the ideal, through the application of technology…Reaching the inevitable end of fear, created and curated in small minds, imposing their will to destroy or deny the technology that was or could guarantee the ascension of humankind…In order to preserve the warped oppressive, despotic antebellum style age of ignorance. This all leads me back to the technology of our futures and the quantum computing of today and tomorrow.
As we reach beyond the physical limits of lithography and single atom level tolerances, it brings forward the next and most likely candidate for true AI (Artificial Intelligence), Predicative Analytics, Machine Learning and the role of a new dominant, intelligent and sentient computer platform .Often messaged and foretold in other, more modern Sci-Fi films, where computers (and governments “best” intentions), have gone amok, destroying, enslaving, synthesizing their creators, as in: Colossus: The Forbin Project. Other films of this technological dystopian ilk are: 2001,The Terminator, The Matrix, Ex Machina and so it goes, the cycle and advance of mob rule, of the once enlightened, brought to the abyss of fear to rip asunder the wonders and promise of technology they have wrought…Oh… for a simpler time…Back to quantum computing…A national security technology if I have ever seen one…escalated control, digital legislation, new laws and regulation and the true invasion of privacy (welcomed into our homes to listen and execute our will: light on, heating adjusted ,groceries ordered)…as only quantum computing can make actionable and to not only the retailer but to satiate the NSA’s rapacious data diet of 30 petabytes daily, (and growing to and beyond Domegemegrottebytes)…Now data can be summarized and distilled into predicative models, patterns for each individual or group thereof at the speed of now…no more bits and dots gathering cobwebs in some storage array in Utah waiting to be connected; the patterns, solutions, and consequence; all variables accounted for will be summarized and no doubt, televised in some ingestible format as the shape of things to forge outcomes.
This is the inevitable, approaching the infinite at warp speed (Dave Bowman saw it in 2001- Got him a nice room and some killer room service meals) …Polynomial, Non-Polynomial Time, Alan Turing’s machines, answering the infinite yes and no …All well and good until you run into an energy problem…Planck Time simply illustrated in Zeno’s computer…Another thing inherent with the “infinite” is that of energy…You need an infinite universe of it, especially if you get down to the level of Planck time (10^{-43} seconds), and if you are not very careful…that new laptop you bought at big box store will have you exceeding the Schwarzschild radius… and: Bang! You collapse in a black hole……Or is that an “Entropy Just Happens” moment and not a bang?
Either way, before you reached that point of singularity…you know everything about everyone: before, during and after, but still are not sure in the knowledge that you influenced any or all of those outcomes by peaking or through pragmatic reason and logic (cause and effect?)...Does Descartes exist…Moving along; one of the promises of quantum mechanics is teleportation and being in 2 distinguishable states simultaneously…In the end, the outcome is the one we transfix our gaze upon and only the one we influenced…If we don’t look: What will the result be? You may begin to understand how the human construct of jurisprudence can be compromised here and all the rights of the individual, unalienable or not, involved or not, present or not, being or not…With this model, there is no longer a requisite for preponderance of data, only attention to an outcome …To think, and believe; what even a successive approximation of a fully realized super quantum computer with malevolent intent or directions could mean to innocence, guilt, the over/under on the game and …Are there always 2 outcomes.
What can you do with Quantum Adiabatic Evolution, Quantum Annealing and the Quantum Gate you may ask? Well, we all have limits and even quantum computers can have nontrivial limits…But here again, they all might equal 42, even in Dirac notation the outcome to everything may still be: 42.
What about quantum entanglement, the EPR paradox and Bell’s Theorem? Will there no longer be a need of the internet, only instances of quantum entanglement to bridge and link machines, people and processes…How can we apply governance at the quantum level…In redress, will privacy be transformed once again…If we could purchase a new quantum laptop from our favorite big box store or online vendor: How comfortable would one be with a device spinning, if not melting, the power meter in your home to keep it at the optimal Milli-Kelvin deep space temperatures required for cooling?
Think about where we are really today with quantum computing. To give some perspective on the deltas of the reported to the actual or current state of what has already come and gone before. Consider that the NSA, in its nascent form, in the mid 1960’s, allegedly had a computer with a clock speed of almost 700mhz…Now leap ahead to 1999 when Intel released the Pentium lll, with a clock speed of 600mhz. Was the NSA 35 years ahead of Intel…How far ahead are DARPA, D-Wave (releasing their 2000qubit chip in January 2017) and IBM in January of 2018?
At the end of that last development cycle; when those engineers and mechanics labor to the end of that last round of continuous integration and continuous deployment; bringing unity and harmony to humankind , the end if strife and want…All but a very few of us will have access to a true , fully realized quantum super computer, as it can be a tectonic disruptor for the many or another form of control from the few…Will we again rebel and bring down the new despots with the promise of more benevolent technology, without fear; solving the very human question of what truly defines progress for us all. At the end of the day, all I really wanted was a quick boot and nothing crashing or ever lost and corrupted.