~scottaaronson_blog | Bookmarks (17)

Yesterday I arrived in Santa Clara for the Q2B (Quantum 2 Business) conference, which starts this morning, and where I’ll be speaking Thursday on “Quantum Algorithms in 2024: How Should We Feel?” and also closing the conference via an Ask-Us-Anything session with John Preskill. (If you’re at Q2B, reader, come and say hi!) And to […]

Do you like watching me spout about AI alignment, watermarking, my time at OpenAI, the P versus NP problem, quantum computing, consciousness, Penrose’s views on physics and uncomputability, university culture, wokeness, free speech, my academic trajectory, and much more, despite my slightly spastic demeanor and my many verbal infelicities? Then holy crap are you in […]

I’m thankful to the thousands of readers of this blog.  Well, not the few submit troll comments from multiple pseudonymous handles, but the 99.9% who don’t. I’m thankful that they’ve stayed here even when events (as they do more and more often) send me into a spiral of doomscrolling and just subsisting hour-to-hour—when I’m left […]

Important Announcement: I don’t in any way endorse voting for Jill Stein, or any other third-party candidate. But if you are a Green Party supporter who lives in a swing state, then please at least vote for Harris, and use SwapYourVote.org to arrange for two (!) people in safe states to vote for Jill Stein […]

I was sure my next post would be about the election—the sword of Damocles hanging over the United States and civilization as a whole. Instead, I have sad news, but also news that brings memories of warmth, humor, and complexity-theoretic insight. Steven Rudich—professor at Carnegie Mellon, central figure of theoretical computer science since the 1990s, […]

Yes, he’s the guy from The Elegant Universe book and TV series. Our conversation is 1 hour 40 minutes; as usual I strongly recommend listening at 2x speed. The topics, chosen by Brian, include quantum computing (algorithms, hardware, error-correction … the works), my childhood, the interpretation of quantum mechanics, the current state of AI, the […]

In nearly twenty years of blogging, I’ve unfortunately felt more and more isolated and embattled. It now feels like anything I post earns severe blowback, from ridicule on Twitter, to pseudonymous comment trolls, to scary and aggressive email bullying campaigns. Reflecting on this, though, I came to see that such strong reactions are an understandable […]

For weeks I agonized over what, if anything, this post should say. How does one commemorate a tragedy that isn’t over for millions of innocents on either side? How do I add to what friend-of-the-blog Boaz Barak and countless others have already written? Do I review the grisly details of Black Shabbat, tell the stories […]

The other night I spoke at a quantum computing event and was asked—for the hundredth time? the thousandth?—whether I agreed that the quantum algorithm called QAOA was poised revolutionize industries by finding better solutions to NP-hard optimization problems. I replied that while serious, worthwhile research on that algorithm continues, alas, so far I have yet […]

Many of you will have seen the news that Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed SB 1047, the groundbreaking AI safety bill that overwhelmingly passed the California legislature. Newsom gave a disingenuous explanation (which no one on either side of the debate took seriously), that he vetoed the bill only because it didn’t go far enough […]

Today is the day I became radicalized in my Jewish and Zionist identities. Uhhh, you thought that had already happened? Like maybe in the aftermath of October 7, or well before then? Hahahaha no. You haven’t seen nothin’ yet. See, a couple days ago, I was consoling myself on Facebook that, even as the arts […]

So, back in June the White House announced that UCLA would host a binational US/India workshop, for national security officials from both countries to learn about the current status of quantum computing and post-quantum cryptography. It fell to me my friend and colleague Rafail Ostrovsky to organize the workshop, which ended up being held last […]

In the comments of my last post—on a podcast conversation between me and Dan Fagella—I asked whether readers wanted me to use AI to prepare a clean written transcript of the conversation, and several people said yes. I’ve finally gotten around to doing that, using GPT-4o. The main thing I learned from the experience is […]

Dan Faggella recorded an unusual podcast with me that’s now online. He introduces me as a “quantum physicist,” which is something that I never call myself (I’m a theoretical computer scientist) but have sort of given up on not being called by others. But the ensuing 85-minute conversation has virtually nothing to do with physics, […]

Update: I’d been wavering—should I vote for the terrifying lunatic, ranting about trans criminal illegal aliens cooking cat meat, or for the nice woman constantly making faces as though the lunatic was completely cracking her up? But when the woman explicitly came out in favor of AI and quantum computing research … that really sealed […]

I’ve finished my two-year leave at OpenAI, and returned to being just a normal (normal?) professor, quantum complexity theorist, and blogger. Despite the huge drama at OpenAI that coincided with my time there, including the departures of most of the people I worked with in the former Superalignment team, I’m incredibly grateful to OpenAI for […]

Pedro Domingos is a computer scientist at the University of Washington.  I’ve known him for years as a guy who’d confidently explain to me why I was wrong about everything from physics to CS to politics … but then, for some reason, ask to meet with me again.  Over the past 6 or 7 years, […]