Why are quantum computers (going to be) important?

[rat_avatar]

@Chronos

That’s why I included “and nobody was forewarned about it”. In the real world, progress is incremental, and before we get a quantum computer big enough to deal with real-world-sized encryption keys, we’ll get a whole succession of smaller ones working up to that size, and at some point the imminent threat is going to be obvious enough that everyone will switch over to one of those other techniques. But if some James Bond supervillain built a kiloqubit machine right now, he’d be able to wreak absolute havoc, because right now, those other methods mostly aren’t implemented.

While we don’t know the size of the BQP, the relation between BQP and NP isn’t known and I don’t think anyone thinks that some of these will extend to NP-complete sets.

The BQP and NP-hard intersection is also obviously unknown but crypto that depends on factorization is at highest risk.

NIST.IR.8105.pdf

Note that doc claims that SHA and AES with larger keys is thought to be resistant.

[albino_manatee]

@Ruken

" Note that we don’t have anywhere close to 250 qubit computers available right now. "

purportedly intel 'n microsoft 'n alphabet are working on their own models … ibm already has successfully built a 50-qubit prototype … 250-qubit is just around the bend. 5, 20 and now 50 … in just 18 months … 250 does not so far off.

IBM makes 20 qubit quantum computing machine available as a cloud service

[Ornery_Bob]

@Mrdeals

I watched a short documentary on QC, and the whole thing kind of made me say “why?”
(According to the doc) never intended to be consumer friendly

No high-end computer has ever been “consumer friendly” because there isn’t a need and there never will be. In fact, even less as time goes on.

Consider “OK, Google, take me home.”

You say that into a “consumer friendly” computer (your phone) and from then it goes to decidedly unfriendly computers running state of the art Artificial Intelligence and those unfriendly computers process the crap out of it and send back what you need in a way you can use it.

You use friendly computers to talk to people. You use unfriendly computers to do real work. They can work together, so you get it all.

We’re very close to the end of home computers as we have known them. You no longer need a computer. You just need a microphone that you can use to talk to a really powerful one running state of the art Artificial Intelligence programs that can actually figure out what you are talking about and give both what you want and often also what you need.

It’s now automatically part of all phones and will soon be part of all televisions. The new Lenovo “Smart Displays” that integrate with Google Assistant are just a stop gap. Look to having the same functionality built into the newer televisions real soon.

More power means more smarts. Some day your Google Assistant will see that you’ve fallen down and can’t get up and it will save your life.

[Darren_Garrison]

Such a Polyanna. Your Google Assistant will be the one to push you down. Then eat all of your pills.

[mind_the_gap]

@Darren_Garrison

Such a Polyanna. Your Google Assistant will be the one to push you down. Then eat all of your pills.

And then call your cats to come finish you off.

[Hari_Seldon]

@Textual_Innuendo

Not only that, but aside from the very valid points psychonaut just brought up, even if RSA / Diffie Hellman is vulnerable to a quantum computer using Shor’s algorithm, there are whole classes of quantum-resistant algorithms that already exist. Supersingular elliptic curves, ring learning, and lattice methods are a few.

The main reason we haven’t adopted any of these yet is NIST hasn’t formally blessed one of them as the best or most implementable (although they have deemed 69 of them complete and proper), so they haven’t made their way into mainstream crypto libraries yet.

Is it known that encryption based on elliptic curves cannot be broken quickly by quantum computers, or merely that no algorithm to do it is known. What about the discrete logarithm. Are there methods involving other abelian varieties?

[dtilque]

@mind_the_gap

And then call your cats to come finish you off.

And take a video of the whole thing and send it to your contacts list.
“Shame about Bob, done in by his own AI”

“Yes, but he made on World’s Funniest Robot Rebellion, so it wasn’t a total loss.”

[Darren_Garrison]

BTW, I am *not *the Darren from the Old Glory Insurance commercial.

[Half_Man_Half_Wit]

@Hari_Seldon

Is it known that encryption based on elliptic curves cannot be broken quickly by quantum computers, or merely that no algorithm to do it is known. What about the discrete logarithm. Are there methods involving other abelian varieties?

Most encryptions based on elliptic curves are vulnerable to Shor’s algorithm; it’s only isogeny-based cryptography that’s considered secure. And I think it’s only because nobody has found an algorithm that solves such problems more quickly—it would surprise me if a general proof existed. After all, it’s not even known that classical computers can’t factor primes quickly.

And the discrete logarithm is exactly the issue—that’s fundamentally what Shor’s algorithm solves.

[psychonaut]

@Ornery_Bob

We’re very close to the end of home computers as we have known them. You no longer need a computer. You just need a microphone that you can use to talk to a really powerful one running state of the art Artificial Intelligence programs that can actually figure out what you are talking about and give both what you want and often also what you need.

So in other words, you no longer need a home computer as long as you don’t give a damn about your own privacy, disclosing your every wish and whim to whatever company happens to be rich and powerful enough to operate this state-of-the-art AI service.

Speaking as an AI researcher who has actually worked for and with such companies, I think I’ll stick with my home computer, thanks.

[Chronos]

Home computers will also never be replaced for gaming. Even if a gaming company were to put in servers capable of handling the computational and graphics needs for all of their customers (which some have indeed experimented with), the inherent latency of such a setup would be unacceptable for many games.

[Jasmine]

@Chronos

If you had a decent-sized quantum computer right now, and nobody was forewarned about it, you could rob banks. All of them, at once, completely. How much money is there in all of the banks in the world combined? That’s how much a quantum computer is worth.

I’m thinking that we will, at some point, develop the technology that will destroy our own civilization. What rises from the ashes will hopefully be much better.