[khawkins]

At the very least, we shouldn't be comparing quantum computing to air flight. The Wright brothers were basically hobbyists, incomparable to the global leading technology corporations in the history of human civilization.

This seems more comparable to the moon landing or LHC Higgs-Boson discovery. Challenging to pull off once, and the next steps seem to increase exponentially in man-power and cost.

[yters]

Those haven't really brought us much benefit. The benefit to effort relationship seems to be inverse.

[scottlocklin]

I think the proper analogy is controlled nuclear fusion, which google is also dabbling with.