State of the Art Quantum Confuser

 

 

Late last year there was an ominous series of reports which seeped into the various lubricious channels of internet tech media; whether this report was an accidental leak or a somewhat more contrived example of the moistest kind of media manipulation in order to drive up interest and the share-price of an ailing tech company, we can only speculate. From the many tech websites the same fevered phrase, worthy of Black Mesa and the scientific rhetoric of the understated apocalyptical disaster: an ‘unforeseen incident’.

The fact that we are all still here and in no immediate danger of being attacked by jumping head-crabs while taking the dog for a morning walk, and turning into a head-crab zombie with clawed slashing arms and a maw of jagged teeth coming out of our chest cavity by lunchtime, indicates that the worst scientific-disaster has either been averted or just not happened yet.

Obviously, it’s hard to get serious or reliable information about what might have taken place during NASA’s experiments with quantum computing, and why NASA reportedly shut down their experiments with a D-Wave quantum computer at the AMES research laboratory in California. Perhaps the most conservative report about the story, from Medium, states that:

“…during a recent test, the computer-generated results that were inconsistent with known physical laws.”[1]

This sounds somewhat ambiguous and if you squint and have an over-active imagination, just like I hope you do because I definitely do, then it almost sounds like the quantum computer started operating on another level of reality and managed to high-five God and had a chat with him and this freaked out all the crazy bald-head boffins so they shut it down. On the other hand, since one issue with quantum computing is that it is particularly ‘noisy’ it may be that the quantum computer just started generating a load of old rubbish. Data and results are easily corrupted due to the extremely sensitive nature of the quantum state, and the fact that even inputting instructions, adds energy which temporarily disrupts the quantum state which can only be maintained at extreme low temperatures where atomic and vibrational activity is almost nill.

An apparent source for all this appears to be an Indian tech writer called Gaurav Sharma who writes  for the Times Internet group and also writes for Medium. He published an article for UdayIndia in December 2023 and an edited version of this article appeared on a website called Techgig[2] in February 2024:

“The abrupt shutdown of NASA’s quantum computing project was triggered by an unforeseen incident during a routine test.”

This article also features its own example of a Shrödinger’s cat quantum paradox since the article reports that the D-Wave computer both reportedly succeeded and failed spectacularly at the same time:

“During the analysis of a complex simulation, the quantum computer demonstrated unprecedented computational power, solving a previously intractable problem. However, this remarkable achievement had an equally alarming consequence: quantum computers began generating outputs that made no sense and challenged conventional thinking.”

This is followed by a sudden hard swerve into the Twilight-Zone:

“Researchers and government officials were concerned that the quantum computer might have connected with an extraterrestrial intelligence or even entered an unknown realm of computation.”

I mean, it’s certainly possible. As I have tried to demonstrate, the quantum realm is the source of everything in the universe and is a kind of overworld God realm, but is it possible that quantum computers can meet and greet directly with God or hang with aliens exchanging top bants and dank memes in 4 dimensional chat-rooms?

An expert in emerging technologies Scott L Hamilton who works at the ailing French multinational multimillion Euro IT services and security company ATOS, writing for the Techshepherd blog refers to the techgig.com article as an apparently authoritative source and Scott’s analysis lapses wonderfully into just the kind of science-fiction sensationalism that we all would love to believe is real, because after all, we love to play video games about aliens coming in through dimensional portals and blowing them into spray paint with the Tao Cannon, but always with the understanding that when we turn the computer off the aliens go away.

“The quantum computing program was actually more successful than expected and gave NASA some surprising results.”

He then adds his own editorial to the Techgig source article:

“I do not believe NASA’s quantum computer contacted extraterrestrial intelligence, but rather became extraterrestrial intelligence.”[3]

He also notes that NASA’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) stopped reporting and posting its researches in April 2023, leading him to suppose that the project had been abandoned, and his conclusions about this are suitably melodramatic:

“To me this indicates that either they killed the program, or found things too dangerous to share with the general public and have silenced their research.”  

A Reddit thread discusses this potentially mysterious shutdown and posits three plausible possibilities for the apparent shut-down, but it should be noted that in this more logical deductive approach there is regrettably no mention of extra-terrestrials being one of the possible explanations.

“a) government/administrative/individual_senator interference (“this is dangerous”; “the existing infrastructure is not yet ready for this”)
b) it’s a false report – but the work has gone undercover due to security
concerns
c) genuine loss of functionality: something has been damaged (possibly just one qbit site), and software/hardware workarounds do not currently exist NB that both failed sites and random ( often clustered) “soft” errors are commonplace in conventional computing, and are dealt with by a mix of isolation and error correction.”[4]

It might merely be a coincidence that ATOS is an IT services company which deals with issues of AI and cyber security. Could it be an instance of one company generating publicity for another which would be mutually beneficial to their share prices? Is that being too paranoid? Or is it less paranoid to believe that a computer became dangerously sentient and had to be switched off before it took over the world?

In an article from ‘The AI Spectator’ page on Linkedin, published in the same November 2023 time-frame, David Borish, whose precise scientific credentials cannot be ascertained, but he describes himself as ‘Creative Technologist & AI Strategist with 20+ years of experience building companies & brands’, we find what I assume to be a different aspect to the same story and presumably a different source but with no less salivating apocalyptical rhetoric and more mention of extra-terrestrials which makes want to boot up my Tor browser to try to procure some fresh depleted Uranium 235 for the Tau Cannon which exists only in my mind, but at least I’ll have the ammo:

“Government Shuts Down NASA Quantum Research & OpenAI Staff Warn Board of a Discovery called Q*: Coincidence or Connection?

In a surprising turn of events, the U.S. government made headlines two weeks ago by ordering the shutdown of NASA’s ambitious quantum research projects. This move came at a time when OpenAI staff researchers had just penned a letter to their board of directors, raising concerns about a powerful AI discovery named Q* and its potential consequences for humanity. Are these two seemingly unrelated events connected, and what could their convergence mean for society?”

The article then pontificates inoffensively about the growth of quantum computers in both the public and private sectors and the potential impact on society and talks in vague terms about the growth of quantum mechanics and the quantum revolution before using this as a springboard which the writer feels bouncy enough to leap into the following:

“Detecting Advanced Alien Civilizations and Encryption Threats One of the most intriguing possibilities presented by quantum computing is the potential to detect advanced alien civilizations. The idea is that these civilizations might utilize black holes as perfect environments for quantum computing, driven by the laws of quantum physics and gravity. Such a discovery could redefine our understanding of the universe and our place within it.”

The writer then calms himself down a bit and returns to Earth and resumes pontificating about ‘great responsibility’ and ‘double-edged swords’ but sadly fails to mention Tau Cannons, and talks in very general terms about the possibility of malicious misuse of this technology for hacking and attacking secure encryption and stealing private, top-secret and scientific information. Until finally revealing that the ‘threat to humanity’ is apparently something to do with AI software which frankly, comes across as a bit of an anti-climax.

“The sudden shutdown of NASA’s quantum research projects has raised eyebrows, especially when considered alongside the concerns expressed by OpenAIstaff researchers. The letter they wrote to the board of directors highlighted a powerful AI discovery named Q*, which they believed could pose a threat to humanity. While the exact details of the letter remain undisclosed, it’s clear that it raised significant concerns about the potential misuse of AI advancements and the consequences of rapid commercialization.”

Reuters, who really should know better, released the same story with a startling introductory paragraph, informing readers of some kind of imminent threat to humanity called the Q star, which on first reading, could be the long-anticipated extra-terrestrials come to either solve all the world’s problems or else put us all out of our misery once and for all, but once the sensationalist sheen is seen to be micron thin and blown away quickly once the article starts to go into boring detail and the whole issue is revealed to be not quite as exciting or dangerous to humanity as might have been hoped and
could well be just another exercise in brand moistening followed by an invigorating massage:

“Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers wrote a letter to the board of directors warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.”

The last line in particular could just as easily read ‘a couple of blokes in the pub told me so’. It’s only in the final paragraph that we discover that the actual form of the apocalyptical threat to humanity from the dreaded legion speeding through space from the Q-star, or something, is…. That possibly Q* can perform some tasks better than humans, though I doubt it can make aparticularly good cup of tea.

“Some at OpenAI believe Q* (pronounced Q-Star) could be a breakthrough in the startup’s search for what’s known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks.”[5]

ATOS like D-Wave has faced mixed fortunes lately and the fact that both companies are struggling to survive indicates one of two possibilities, that the whole story is partially manufactured to generate interest. Whether this news was an attempt to drive interest in the D-Wave quantum computer and increase its share-price, which had been glumly sitting below the 1 dollar range  for a continuous period of 30 days and D-Wave Quantum Systems Inc. had received a Notice of Non-Compliance, section 802.01C of the New York Stock Exchange’s Listed Company Manual, and been given a six-month window during which its stock price had to be above 1 dollar for a continuous 30 day period otherwise face the prospect of imminent delisting. In the third quarter of 2024 the company was operating at a net loss of 22.7 million dollars with modest yearly revenue of on average, about 5 million dollars and an operation staff of some 200 people. A thread, also on Reddit asks why D-Wave gone bankrupt yet?[6]

And one of the responses was that government money is probably involved. This is particularly pertinent since Lockheed Martin purchased the first commercially available quantum computer from D-Wave in May 2011 for 10 million dollars.[7] It is worth remembering that Lockheed Martin is the CIA’s primary intelligence contractor, providing surveillance and information processing services, and as such is arguably part of the ‘shadow government’ and an aspect of the deep-state, and there might be justifiable concerns about the implications of quantum computers being somehow used to monitor and spy on private citizens. A fact which, although not of apocalyptical world-ending import, such levels of government computational power ought to fill us with the same dread that a possible imminent alien invasion would, and perhaps whatever phantom enemies are conjured perhaps our greatest enemy has always been and always will be, our own governments.

At the beginning of November 2024, D-Wave regained compliance with the NYSE[8], and not only that but it is now being quietly touted as a hot-stock,[9] certainly had you invested at the start of November 2024 you would have tripled your investment in less than a month and this could even be the beginning of its race to the moon and it could well become the next Nvidia.  However, D-Wave’s present stock value at 3 dollars 17 cents represents something of a significant portfolio loss if you went in at 10 dollars thinking this company would be the next big thing in tech, and far short of present price of tech-goliath Tesla stock at 352.56 dollars. Funnily enough there are a string of goofy Youtube videos claiming Elon Musk himself shut down the D-Wave quantum computer. To be fair, as click-baity bullshitty as these videos may be, their producers using whatever favourite AI voice profile tickles their fancy, do actually have a lot of well researched facts about quantum computing and the videos are quite interesting, though of course, there is nothing actually in the video to substantiate that Elon Musk himself had anything to do with ‘shutting down’ the D-Wave quantum computer.

Who knows what might happen in the future and it might be worth watching D-Wave, assuming any more news, whether real or fabricated, emerges from the obscure depths of its quantum shenanigans, and try to maintain in your own mind, something of the
Schrodinger’s cat state or healthy quantum uncertainty. It could be true, but
at the same time, it could be bullshit.