Or my Mother in law!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I should of clarified...the average person that uses a computer will not need nor use the ability to do complex equations...but perhaps...maybe that too will change in the future.

Thanks for the request. I did watch the second video, the interview with Michail Lufkin. His views are different in tenor than those of Alexander Lvovsky. Lvovsky's warning seemed to me to be the crux of your original post: "In fact, he asserts that no encryption existing today would be able to hide from the processing power of a functioning quantum computer. Medical records, financial information, even the secrets of governments and military organizations would be free for the taking—meaning that the entire world order could be threatened by this technology."

Your second thoughts and Lufkin's opinions were more commanding. I agree that the potentials are wonderful to consider. Nanometer and nanosecond sensing offer tremendous opportunities.

I do disagree with the claim that the "average person" will not benefit from quantum computing.

"For all of the prognostication and soothsaying, Kemeny in 1972 vastly underestimated the length, breadth, depth, and flow of the information revolution he would live to see welling up before he passed away too early in 1992 from heart failure." -- "John Kemeny Knew: We Shall Have Computed" here http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
Like others of his time, Kemeny expected perhaps five super-sized computers providing for everyone via timesharing. So, too, with quantum: it is a tool of the superstates, Russia and America ... until someone comes along who changes that dynamic.

By comparison, perhaps, the race for battleships, dreadnoughts, and super-dreadnoughts, of 100 years ago did not do much for the average person. I am not even sure that our bridges are better than they would have been otherwise, i.e., that the race for better armor really resulted in novel alloys. But, over all and in the main, it is true that our world is vastly better off for the proliferation of fractional horsepower motors.

Also, by comparison, last weekend at Armadillocon, in the panel discussion on Arthur C. Clarke, one of the "experts" said that petroleum is a runaway technology that will destroy us all with global warming. Perhaps he thought that we should still be burning hardwoods... I did not ask.

You need a little pepper to spice up your food now and then. You want a Real nightmare? Try imagining being married to my brother-in-law.

Are you kidding? I hope my beagle outlasts me.

Agreed...however...if you think that's scary, I read an article about how scientist have "Made" antihydrogen and antielectrons to contain antiprotons to see if they could control them...for what ultimate purpose?...not sure I want to know...it still gives me the shivers. When they created too many...wait...wait for it...they just let them go!...WTF!!!

Note: supposedly a real particle, (antimatter) they've never seen one nor caught one but they did manage to make one...happy nightmares!

That's why we have dogs...not so lonely anymore...laughing

You really didn't expect that one now did you?

I am conflicted because I see AI and advancements in physics as causing symbiotic relationships between man and machine. While human evolution is faster than other species, it is not comparable to the swiftness of digital evolution. How long will it take for the symbiotic effect to evolve into servant and master. Human as master at first and human as servant in a short time. Terminator? Could be. Certainly more likely than many other scenarios.

We progress by leaps and bounds. However, most leaps and bound lead nowhere.But, you throw enough crap on the wall, some of it is bound to stick.We are a impatient race. But as an ant looking up at a man said to a few hundred of his companions -- "It is a strange and lonely thing to be a man."

Agreed and thanks...

A most disturbing component to any discussion of this nature is the focus on the technology as if it were the deciding factor between good and bad. It has no more influence in the decision than does a knife or gun in a murder.

What I am concerned about is the mentality of who may be wielding the technology. There are no requisites, filters, litmus....nothing to help determine exactly what KIND of person is using it for WHAT purpose (and what hidden purpose).

We have a current "lack of principles" operational mode for a large section of humanity. I'm not convinced I want ANYONE near the technology at this time..

A refresher read of Bastiat's "What is Seen and What is Unseen" might be in order. Most are familiar with the "broken window" part but the rest is VERY helpful to solidify the concepts in your being by ingesting the other components.

Oh, and your post was a wondrous fount of information and thoughtful criticism. You look pretty pontificatingly dismissive to me and you don't do your opinion a whole lot of validating.

Alexander Lvovsky, Quantum Optics group leader at the Russian Quantum Center and Professor of Physics at the University of Calgary in Canada. I do think he brought some valid points and concerns.
You are, of course, correct...they always jump the gun...blind, to any possible consequences, not having the whole picture up to that point.
Seems they are more interested in quantum jumps instead of quantum consciousness involving the human mind.

Human kind is an impatient lot...which either works out by luck or fails miserably...that's how we have always learned: "Head First"!

Who did you say that leading physicist is?
As you know, O.U.Carl, I have read up on quantum physics quite a bit in the last 30+ years.But from the time of Einstein to the present it seems as if most physicists haven't a solid clue as to whats going on. They look at the quantum world and explore and exploit it, but they do so without truly knowing why they are doing what they are doing even though they are doing it. It's like a guy who walks into a little room and presses a button and is deposited in a different space without knowing he's using an elevator. The only one of the "greats" who seems to freely admit the quantum quandry is Niels Bohr who says we know certain things but where they are and what they are doing is still unsolved. Because of this, math whiz kids come up with unfinished, weird theories, playing on our ignorance, and throwing out any cockamamie idea figuring by calling it "thought experiment" a la Einstein that would give it validity. Unfortunately it still requires proof. As humans, how can we deal with the very basis of the universe without even knowing what consciousness is in any profound sense. Just to be a bit nasty to our beloved compatriots; Objectivism is heavily wrapped around perceiving reality. But quantum leans more heavily toward shadows on the wall than the ability of our senses to tell us the truth.
So, in order to retain sanity, we set up a universe that agrees with our senses being able to perceive it even though everything we know from our sensory input, is an illusion.It is about time that we admit that in order to survive, we deal with a universe that we can work with our limited sensory equipment as we, at the same time, try to understand the underlying "real" universe.

Amen!

If they hadn't shielded the computer from our minds we could of controlled them with our thoughts while sharing the ether...scratch that...can't trust that one either.

So long as they don't take readings from sensors in the hottest parts of the cities...like they have with temperature recording stations!...[sad][sick]

Quantum computing is an example of Arthur C. Clarke's observation that any sufficiently advanced technology will be perceived as magic. QC joins AI as technology that makes us very uncomfortable, with the implications of being uncontrollable by mere humans.

The other area which has been discussed for use in quantum computing is weather/climate research owing to the need to analyze vast amounts of complex, interacting systems at a given moment in time. Then one would model the system by analyzing huge numbers of incremental slices of calculations to find correlations and estimate outcomes.

Thanks for sharing!

The article itself gives a certain validity to the premise, Mike, that this tech will be disruptive...that pretty much goes without saying, any new tech can be disruptive or destructive depending upon its use.
The article looks at both sides of that equation.

I am just asking for thoughts on the subject. So, you think it's no big deal then...Ok...that's your contribution.

I appreciate that they even discussed the scenario in the first place.

What did surprise me is that this tech, as used in computing, won't be of much value to the average user...but the spin offs, (second vid) look exciting and promising.
Have any thought on that subject?

Back in 1983, using BASIC on a TRS-80, I wrote a program to break Caesar Ciphers. The digital computer made the wax tablet and stylus obsolete but is not a weapon of mass destruction.

It is only out of respect for your long and productive history here that I did not vote your post down to 0 as spam. I will give you a chance to defend it...