Yet.
Quantum computing isn’t exactly a new thing. It’s been under research for some years. But Google has went public with their latest efforts in the field, and the implications ought to scare hell out of all of us. There is now a working quantum computer that can do actual work. It’s imperfect, but expect Moore’s Law to handle that.
There are two major implications that I see immediately:
- As noted in the BBC article, every encryption that is publicly known is now broken. Someone with access to this technology will soon be able to break the most sophisticated encryption is real time. This should concern you not only for the criminal implications, but because of how governments will use and misuse, probably mostly misuse, the technology.
- The intersection of AI and quantum computing. AI may well turn into the worst predictions we’ve heard. And they’re already working on it.
Yeah, it’s an interesting time to be alive.
As a counterpoint, there are people saying no one has actually proven the darn things work. I’m not gonna panic just yet. Maybe later. I’ll probably be dead before the singularity hits. Kinda thinking I should go back to drinking too much.