quantum computers
Article
quantum computers is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 04, 2022 and March 10, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “paradigms that are still in the early-slow-growth stage, maybe quantum computers”; “geniuses who are mentally healthy and ambitious are probably inventing quantum computers at MIT”. It most often appears alongside Eliezer Yudkowsky, Elon Musk, GPT.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: April 04, 2022
- Last seen: March 10, 2023
Appears In
Related Pages
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- Eliezer Yudkowsky (2 shared issues)
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- Elon Musk (2 shared issues)
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- GPT (2 shared issues)
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- GPT-2 (2 shared issues)
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- GPT-3 (2 shared issues)
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- Robin Hanson (2 shared issues)
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- US government (2 shared issues)
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- 2013 (1 shared issues)
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- Agricultural Revolution (1 shared issues)
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- AI (1 shared issues)
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- AI alignment theory (1 shared issues)
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- Ajeya (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
Now imagine a graph of total tech industry profits over time. Without having seen this graph, I imagine relatively consistent growth. In the 1990s, the growth was mostly from selling PCs and Windows CDs, which were on the super-hot growth parts of their sigmoid. By the 2000s, those had matured and flattened out, but new paradigms (smartphones, online retail) were on the super-hot growth parts of their sigmoids. By the late 2010s, those had matured too, but newer paradigms (cryptocurrency, electric cars) were on the super-hot growth parts of their sigmoids. If we want to know what the next decade will bring, we should look for paradigms that are still in the early-slow-growth stage, maybe quantum computers. The idea is: each individual paradigm has a sigmoid that slows and peters out, but the tech industry as a whole generates new sigmoids and maintains its usual growth rate.
24: Related: The Mensa Fallacy. Many older studies show that very-high-IQ people are mentally imbalanced, bad at real-world tasks, or unambitious. Newer, more representative studies don’t show this. The most likely explanation: the older studies got their very-high-IQ samples from Mensa, the most convenient place to find lots of very-high-IQ subjects. But within the population of very-high-IQ people, Mensa is adversely selected for non-IQ traits; geniuses who are mentally healthy and ambitious are probably inventing quantum computers at MIT or making bank on Wall Street; it’s the geniuses who can’t make it in regular society who are going to every Mensa to boast about how quickly they can solve Rubik’s Cubes. Any study that uses a Mensa sample to study very-high-IQ people and conclude that they’re defective should be considered suspicious.
Inline links: The Mensa Fallacy