Q2B 2022 SV | Ask Me Anything | Scott Aaronson | University of Texas at Austin

Scott Aaronson, Professor of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin and
Anastasia Marchenkova, Research Scientist, Bleximo

[@snarkyboojum]

Summary: The conversation covers various aspects of quantum computing, including circuit depth, quantum advantage, error correction, and the commercialization of quantum computing. Anastasia Marchenkova discusses recent developments in the field, the need for error correction in scaling quantum advantage, and the future directions of quantum computing. Scott Aaronson discusses the importance of circuit depth and ruling out the possibility of random circuit sampling providing a quantum advantage without error correction. He also expresses the need for comparisons between quantum and classical computing, as well as the improvement of quantum supremacy experiments. The conversation concludes with discussions on the speaker's involvement in quantum computing, the commercialization of quantum computing, and the physical reality of quantum entanglement.
Key themes:
1. Recent developments in quantum computing, including circuit depth, error correction, and quantum advantage.
2. The need for comparisons between quantum and classical computing, as well as the improvement of quantum supremacy experiments.
3. The commercialization of quantum computing and the physical reality of quantum entanglement.
Suggested follow-up questions:
1. How can the field of quantum computing further improve gate fidelities and establish more robust quantum supremacy experiments?
2. What are the main challenges in developing error correction techniques for scaling quantum advantage?
3. How can interdisciplinary collaboration between computer scientists, physicists, and mathematicians be fostered to tackle the challenges in quantum computing?
4. What are the potential practical applications of quantum computing that can be explored beyond quantum approximate optimization algorithms?
5. How can the adoption of post quantum cryptography solutions be facilitated to address national security concerns related to scalable quantum computers breaking public key cryptography?

[@travisfitzwater8093]

You got to admit, that was a good idea.:)

[@elenabalyberdina2393]

finally Scott debunked superdeterminism

[@aminam9201]

This the only one (present time) that can be classified as a scientist, he isn’t Hallucinator (realistic).

[@telesniper2]

I would have asked him about P=NP again. Personally I think P≈NP, that is complexity classes are ill-defined and the problem is ill-posed at the moment. He discussed it back in 2006 where he gave a bunch of informal reasons why he believes P≠NP. A lot of which showed me that he really doesn't fully understand the problem. If P≠NP, it would be at least POSSIBLE, if not easy to PROVE that. But one of the things he said was "if P=NP, then everyone would be Mozart, because it would require the same amount of effort to trivially create works of art as it does to appreciate them". That statement hasn't aged well in light of recent advances of generative AI. It HAS become trivially easy to create works of art.