Some Stray Thoughts Regarding Implications of Google’s New Quantum Computing Announcement

I will admit that I am still learning some of the theory behind quantum computing and my ability to understand is not as great as my knowledge of classical computation. I am also still working through Busemeyer’s work on cognitive modeling and quantum theory, and have some inherent skepticism about it that stems from the problems with Penrose’s various quantum hooey about the mind. That said, presuming that Google’s approach (1) checks out in peer review (2) it is feasible as a nonstandard mode of computation, it has some very far-reaching effects for a variety of fields. Dominic Basulto captures many of them, but this in particular caught my eye:

Due to the specifics of how Google’s quantum computer works — a process known as quantum annealing — the immediate applications for Google’s quantum computer are a class of AI problems generally referred to as optimization problems. Imagine NASA being able to use quantum computers to optimize the flight trajectories of interstellar space missions, FedEx being able to optimize its delivery fleet of trucks and planes, an airport being able to optimize its air traffic control grid, the military being able to crack any encryption code, or a Big Pharma company being able to optimize its search for a breakthrough new drug.

This is particularly of interest mostly because of the origins of the term “bounded rationality” in military logistics optimization problems. We have lived with the reality of limited computational power for a very long time, and this has had some major implications for how we see our own decision-making. I think that, if quantum computing renders so many of these optimization problems-computing power mismatches moot, it would result in several things of interest.

It would suggest the folly of dogmatically rooting computational social science in its current combination of bounded rationality from the standpoint of classical computation and a vision of complex hierarchal systems. And it might suggest the utility of quantum ideas for social science in ways others have explored. It also would suggest a new model of man that is distinct from the way in which the influence of classical computation shaped the course of the modern social and behavioral sciences.

That’s all for now. I don’t really feel comfortable saying more until I’ve worked through more of Busemeyer’s writings.