Economist Robin Hanson says we’re on the brink of a strange new era. Read an excerpt of “The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth” below.
Eugene Sergeev / Shutterstock.
What will the next great era be like, after the eras of foraging, farming, and industry?
Closing the instability gap.
(Phys.org)—It might be said that the most difficult part of building a quantum computer is not figuring out how to make it compute, but rather finding a way to deal with all of the errors that it inevitably makes. Errors arise because of the constant interaction between the qubits and their environment, which can result in photon loss, which in turn causes the qubits to randomly flip to an incorrect state.
In order to flip the qubits back to their correct states, physicists have been developing an assortment of quantum error correction techniques. Most of them work by repeatedly making measurements on the system to detect errors and then correct the errors before they can proliferate. These approaches typically have a very large overhead, where a large portion of the computing power goes to correcting errors.
In a new paper published in Physical Review Letters, Eliot Kapit, an assistant professor of physics at Tulane University in New Orleans, has proposed a different approach to quantum error correction. His method takes advantage of a recently discovered unexpected benefit of quantum noise: when carefully tuned, quantum noise can actually protect qubits against unwanted noise. Rather than actively measuring the system, the new method passively and autonomously suppresses and corrects errors, using relatively simple devices and relatively little computing power.
Kurzweil, me and others have been saying devices will eventually be phased out for a while now. However, I do not believe the phase out will be due to AI. I do believe it will be based on how humans will use and adopt NextGen technology. I believe that AI will only be a supporting technology for humans and will be used in conjunction with AR, BMI, etc.
My real question around the phasing out of devices is will we jump from Smartphone directly to BMI or see a migration of Smartphone to AR Contacts & Glasses then eventually BMI?…
(Bloomberg) — Forget personal computer doldrums and waning smartphone demand. Google thinks computers will one day cease being physical devices.
“Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the “device to fade away, Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai wrote Thursday in a letter to shareholders of parent Alphabet Inc. “Over time, the computer itself — whatever its form factor — will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day.
Instead of online information and activity happening mostly on the rectangular touch screens of smartphones, Pichai sees artificial intelligence powering increasingly formless computers. “We will move from mobile first to an AI first world, he said.
I read this article and it’s complaints about the fragile effects of data processing and storing information in a Quantum Computing platform. However, I suggest the writer to review the news released 2 weeks ago about the new Quantum Data Bus highlighted by PC World, GizMag, etc. It is about to go live in the near future. Also, another article to consider is today’s Science Daily articile on electron spin currents which highlights how this technique effectively processes information.
Rare-earth materials are prime candidates for storing quantum information, because the undesirable interaction with their environment is extremely weak. Consequently however, this lack of interaction implies a very small response to light, making it hard to read and write data. Leiden physicists have now observed a record-high Purcell effect, which enhances the material’s interaction with light. Publication on April 25 in Nature Photonics (“Multidimensional Purcell effect in an ytterbium-doped ring resonator”).
Ordinary computers perform calculations with bits—ones and zeros. Quantum computers on the other hand use qubits. These information units are a superposition of 0 and 1; they represent simultaneously a zero and a one. It enables quantum computers to process information in a totally different way, making them exponentially faster for certain tasks, like solving mathematical problems or decoding encryptions.
Fragile.
The difficult part now is to actually build a quantum computer in real life. Rather than silicon transistors and memories, you will need physical components that can process and store quantum information, otherwise the key to the whole idea is lost. But the problem with quantum systems is that they are more or less coupled to their environments, making them lose their quantum properties and become ‘classical’. Thermal noise, for example, can destroy the whole system. It makes quantum systems extremely fragile and hard to work with.
Transporting information from one place to another is a key part of any computing platform, and now researchers have figured out a way to make it possible in the quantum world.
To prove their point, they demonstrated what’s known as perfect state transfer on a photonic qubit that’s entangled with another qubit at a different location.
In traditional computing, numbers are represented by either 0s or 1s. Quantum computing relies on atomic-scale quantum bits, or “qubits,” that can be simultaneously 0 and 1—a state known as superposition. Quantum bits can also become “entangled” so that they are dependent on one another even across distances.
Scientists are now one step closer to neutralizing HIV.
In a study conducted at Vanderbilt University and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers isolated antibodies with a loop-like structure that binds tightly to HIV and disables it. Unlike traditional vaccines, which jump-start an immune response by exposing the patient to a pathogen, this newly discovered method could work even in people who have not previously been exposed to by the virus.
Using computer modeling, the researchers identified the amino acid sequences that bound most tightly to HIV and re-engineered them in an optimal sequence that simulated vaccination.
New requirement if you’re a Smartphone device provider and trying to sell in India.
Starting next year, all mobile phones sold across India must include a panic button, local news outlets are reporting. In addition, by 2018, all cell phones need to come with a built-in GPS chip, so a person in trouble can be more easily found.
“Technology is solely meant to make human life better and what better than using it for the security of women,” communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a statement, according to The Economic Times. “I have taken a decision that from January 1, 2017, no cell phone can be sold without a provision for panic button and from January 1, 2018, mobile sets should have in-built GPS.”
According to the Times, those with feature phones can press keys 5 and 9 to alert local law enforcement to an emergency under the new policy. On smartphones, vendors will be required to display an “emergency” button. Smartphone makers can also build in a feature that alerts law enforcement once the on/off button is pressed three times in succession.
More highlights around the correlation of Data Compression and Quantum Entanglement. I do believe as we move forward with Quantum Computing (QC) that we will discover many other correlations and re-usage of existing technology principles with Quantum Computing.
Does this data belong in the classical or the quantum world? Run it through a zip compression program to find out!
Draper’s ChipSat Research Could Make Stamp-Sized Spacecraft Functional for Interstellar Mission
CAMBRIDGE, MA – Chip-sized spacecraft will be beamed about 25 trillion miles to Alpha Centauri within 20 years of launch – a mission that would otherwise take 30,000 years – thanks to an engineering project sponsored by the Breakthrough Starshot team. Since 2010, Draper and Cornell University have collaborated on research into spacecraft that could be reduced to the size of a postage stamp and dubbed “ChipSats.” While ChipSats are small and inexpensive to launch, they face challenges far different from those of larger spacecraft and require a completely different approach to space missions.
Due to their tiny size, ChipSats experience disturbances in space in a different manner from large spacecraft. Much like a dinghy is greatly affected by waves that cannot move an oil tanker, the importance of small environmental forces, such as solar radiation pressure and aerodynamic drag, is magnified for ChipSats. This represents a challenge for completing the journey to Alpha Centauri and pointing precisely to send data back to Earth. But it is also an opportunity for developing new guidance and control approaches that take advantage of the environment.
