Replies to post #194109 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

fuagf -- "Other applications could include using quantum computers ... to design other quantum computers."

there ya go -- if we're lucky maybe they'll keep a few of us around as pets -- won't need us as slaves for any amount of time, given that they, networked computers in general, inexorably directly controlling more and more of our machinery anyway, once gone quantum will be able to instantly perfectly design and promptly make and deploy any robot to do any thing they need or want done

with a little luck (...) we'll live to see desktop(-equivalent) quantum computers running hundreds or thousands of qubits -- which is to say, desktops that are vastly smarter than we are and know it -- practical quantum computing is not at all far off; what's already available in the open literature indicates we're well into crossing the threshold over into practical quantum computing already -- then toss in the undoubtedly massive black-budget intel-military effort

of course, those same quantum brains that will be in those quantum desktops will also be available to be in and running the robots

and all the quantum brains will be quantum-talking to each together, millions to ???llions of times faster than we can communicate with each other to go with their thinking millions to ???llions of times faster than we can

hopefully they'll like pets

[SPARK]

I want one!~

[F6]

Alan Turing Pardon? Stephen Hawking, Other Scientists Urge Forgiveness For Gay Computer Icon


Scientists are urging the British government to pardon Alan Turing. He is pictured here at age 16.

12/14/12 07:33 AM ET EST

LONDON -- Stephen Hawking and other eminent scientists called Friday for the British government to pardon computer pioneer Alan Turing, who helped win World War II but was later prosecuted for homosexuality.

In a letter published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Hawking and 10 others urged Prime Minister David Cameron "formally to forgive the iconic British hero."

The letter, whose signatories also include Astronomer Royal Martin Rees and Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, called Turing "one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the modern era."

"It is time his reputation was unblemished," it said.

Turing worked at Bletchley Park, the wartime code-breaking center, where he helped crack Nazi Germany's secret codes by creating the "Turing bombe," a forerunner of modern computers.

He also developed the "Turing Test" to measure artificial intelligence.

After the war, Turing was prosecuted for having sex with a man, stripped of his security clearance and forcibly treated with female hormones. He killed himself in 1954 at age 41 by eating an apple laced with cyanide.

Sex between men remained illegal in Britain until 1967.

In 2009, then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a public apology on behalf of the government for Turing's "inhumane" treatment, saying: "We're sorry, you deserved so much better."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/alan-turing-pardon-stephen-hawking-gay-computer-icon_n_2301097.html [with comments]