[btilly]

This is a puff piece.

As http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400 makes clear, the current incarnation of D-Wave looks cool and costs a fortune, but is slower than a desktop PC running properly-optimized code. And that optimized code only needed to be written once because it solves the problem that D-Wave asks us to reduce all problems to before we can use D-Wave.

[pfedor]

As http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400 admits, large-scale entanglement most likely does take place in D-Wave's computer. So now he just argues that their proof of concept prototype is not as efficient as classical devices that have been perfected over fifty years.

If we lived in a world where nuclear energy was still just a theoretical possibility, and you had a company D-Uranium trying to build the first reactor ever, and someone like Scott Aaronson kept saying for years and years "You guys suck you haven't even demonstraded there are any atoms split inside your device, for all we know it's all heat from chemical reactions", and then, eventually in the face of evidence he was forced to admit that atoms indeed were being split in D-Uranium's pile, so he retreated to saying "But your reactor generates less heat than a coal burning power station so you guys still suck!"--what would that make you think?

[btilly]

You're attacking me for what I didn't say and ignoring what I did. I'm not attacking D-Wave for their ambitions. I'm attacking the article for being a puff piece.

The article, in the second paragraph, says ...the computer can solve a certain type of problem much faster than conventional computers... which is a claim that even cursory research into the subject would find false. (Though a PR company could easily deliver a packet of materials and people to talk to which would give a journalists quotes on both sides, and leave them thinking that it was true.) That theme of "this is insanely fast" is repeated throughout the piece in various ways with no challenges. The journalist did not do their homework.

That right there is the evidence upon which I base my assertion that this is a puff piece. This looks and feels in every way like what a journalist might write based on the information given by a PR firm.

Full stop.

As for the rest, you're unfairly misrepresenting what Scott Aaronson has been saying. His statement all along is that D-Wave's marketing exceeds their delivery, and he's afraid that a legitimate field of study - which he's involved with - could suffer backlash as a result. He has repeatedly said, and I believe him on this, that if they can actually deliver then he'll be a huge fan. But as long as they say they have delivered when they haven't, he's going to be a critic.

This seems to me to be a reasonable response to an overhyped implementation of cool technology. There always will be salesmen overselling their products. But for building long-term trust, remember the mantra "under promise and over deliver". D-Wave is doing the opposite.

[lolcraft]

First, Scott Aaronson never said D-Wave sucked, to my knowledge. I downvoted you for that exhibition of rhetoric, it was pretty immature even for my standards.

Second, compare quantum computing with fussion, which is of about the same level of difficulty. Some physicist thought he had cold fussion, and the response from the community was (rightfully!) to be skeptical. But even if it would have worked, no one would whine about how Evil Physicists were Keeping Cold Fussion Down. Instead, it would be understood as the appropiate reaction to very wild claims, and large scale entanglement is pretty out there.

[mikeash]

It would make me think that nuclear energy isn't yet a practical alternative for electrical generation, and anyone trying to sell me a nuclear generating station must be up to something.

Why, what would it make you think?

[foobarqux]

There were two issues: 1. Quantum entanglement was not previously shown 2. D-Wave did not gives evidence of the ability to perform better than classical computers.

Now D-Wave has shown 1 but 2 remains a valid criticism. I don't understand why anyone should just assume that the D-Wave architecture can be faster --- for a restricted set of tasks --- than a classical computer.