Quantum Computer Learns To 'See' Trees (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes from a report via Science Magazine: Scientists have trained a quantum computer to recognize trees. That may not seem like a big deal, but the result means that researchers are a step closer to using such computers for complicated machine learning problems like pattern recognition and computer vision. The team fed hundreds of NASA satellite images of California into a D-Wave 2X processor, and asked the computer to consider dozens of features -- hue, saturation, even light reflectance -- to determine whether clumps of pixels were trees as opposed to roads, buildings, or rivers. They then told the computer whether its classifications were right or wrong so that the computer could learn from its mistakes, tweaking the formula it uses to determine whether something is a tree. After it was trained, the D-Wave was 90% accurate in recognizing trees in aerial photographs of Mill Valley, California. The results demonstrate how scientists can program quantum computers to 'look' at and analyze images, and opens up the possibility of using them to solve other complex problems that require heavy data crunching.

Comments

Annealing again

[TechyImmigrant]

The 2X DWave machine does quantum annealing. This is good in the sense that it doesn't come remotely close to the kind of machine that maintains coherence across hundreds of bits that can mess up public key crypto. It managed 5 qbits for 20us if read the paper right.

The paper proudly points out it managed 9% error compared to 10.5% error rate of a classical computer doing simulated annealing. However this is not better than classical computer running a better distinguisher. Classical computers are not constrained to run only simulated annealing.

We have yet to reach the point where any quantum computer is faster than a classical computer at any task. This is a good thing. No one has really put anything in place to protect the cryptography of commerce from a hypothetical but largely impossible quantum computer running Shor's algorithm or Grover's algorithm. New hope, RWLE, hash based signatures etc are still the domain of IACR papers. You bank will not be using them any time soon. Lattice crypto just keep getting broken.