Google Demonstrates Quantum Computer Image Search

An anonymous reader sends along this quote from New Scientist: "Google's web services may be considered cutting edge, but they run in warehouses filled with conventional computers. Now the search giant has revealed it is investigating the use of quantum computers to run its next generation of faster applications. Writing on Google's research blog this week, Hartmut Neven, head of its image recognition team, reveals that the Californian firm has for three years been quietly developing a quantum computer that can identify particular objects in a database of stills or video (PDF). Google has been doing this, Neven says, with D-Wave, a Canadian firm that has developed an on-chip array of quantum bits — or qubits — encoded in magnetically coupled superconducting loops."

Comments

Oh no, not D-Wave.

[Interoperable]

I trust Google not to do anything unbelievably stupid (a bit silly perhaps, but nothing too absurd) but thinking that D-Wave can make a quantum computer is a very, very bad idea. Now it sounds like Google has been working on the algorithm side and I suspect that they're doing good work. The trouble is that D-Wave is doing the hardware. This is a company that has yet to demonstrate any success whatsoever.

They frequently release press updates saying that they have added more bits to the machine but they have never shown it to work for even a small number of bits. The physicists who developed the idea of an adiabatic quantum computer say that D-Wave seems to have misinterpreted their theory to make unrealistic claims and the whole thing is regarded as a bit of a joke in the physics community.

That said, developing the algorithms is a worthwhile thing to do so Google may not be relying on D-Wave to justify their research. I hope not. D-Wave may actually be on to something big that they haven't revealed to the scientific community, but probably not.

Re:Already Skynet protects itself

[Pflipp]

Google has made it difficult both to find out where they keep their data centers and how many they have.

Well, you can get to know either, but just not both at the same time.

That's quantum for ya.

Schrödinger's lolcat

[RevWaldo]

Test User: OK, so what you're saying is that if I search for lolcats using Google's quantum image search, it will give me an array of lolcat images to choose from, but until I open the image we won't know if the lolcat is funny or not funny? That makes sense.

Google Scientist: Actually, before you look at the image the lolcat is in a state of superposition. Before your look at the photo it can be both funny AND not funny. By the act of you observing the photo it settles into one of those two states.

Test user: So there's a 50/50 chance of the exact same photo being funny or not funny?

Google Scientist: Essentially yes. Well, unless you go by the "many worlds" model, which states that if you look at the picture, you become entangled with the lolcat, so that the observation of the humor of the lolcat, and the actual humor of the lolcat are joined together. There will exist a universe where you find the image funny, and a universe where you find the image not funny, but these two universes cannot inform each other of these two different states.

Test User: I think I understand.

Google Scientist: Go ahead, click on one of the images from the search.

Test User: Now, you're sure nothing bad will happen? No black holes will open up or anything?

Google Scientist (amused): Yes, I'm absolutely sure.

Test User: OK, I'll try this one.

(The user clicks the image.)

Test User: OH NOES! (faints.)