re: Quantum tech is something we need to back off from as a human species

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if the get quantum decryption, couldnt they also have quantum encryption?

serious question

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No.

In simple terms, encryption is a series of numbers and characters arranged in a specific order. The more of these and the larger the potential character set, the longer it will take to crack.

Example:

Imagine I told you my password was 3 characters long, and the character set was all integers (0-9)

There are only 1000 possibilites: 000 - 999...this would take no time to crack.

Now imagine I told you my password is 3 characters, but the character set is integers, all lowercase letters, all uppercase letters, and all special characters ($ # @ etc.). There are billions (trillions?) of possibilities, but a good computer could still just try random combinations of characters until it came across the right one.

Now take it one step further and imagine my password is 37 characters with the character set mentioned above. The number of possible combinations is nigh on infinite, so trying to guess random combinations ( called "brute forcing"), even with the world's most powerful computers, would take eons.

With quantum computers, that time shrinks to hours or seconds, regardless of how big and complex you make the password. Essentially any password you could possibly remember could be cracked easily. Even passwords generated by computers would eventually become useless as the available qbits increase.

ETA: Easter Bunny, that's my layman's understanding of encryption. What is the workaround for quantum computers that you mentioned. Would I still be able to use a dumb password like "P@55w0rd123!" and really advanced hash algorithms cover my arse? Or would the password itself need to get complex to the point that I need a computer dedicated fo creating and storing it?

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Quantum encryption is already being implemented. OP is a drama queen

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Sure. But we, the people, won't have it.

It's like the current gun ownership system in the US. The government wouldnt hand the population processing power like that because it's too dangerous - they'd like us stay in the binary world. The problem is nothing would be privately sacred in that model.

And as long as the AI/Quantum arms race continues that divide between those in power and the people will grow wider and wider until the onset of AGI then ASI.

At that point whatever power controls that tech wins indefinitely and we all lose our freedom

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These computers can be as smart as they want but all it takes is some janitor to walk over and pull a fuse and the shite is fricking done. Obviously that's an oversimplification but you get my point. What effect does all this intelligence have in the physical world? Human still have complete dominion over the physical world. It's not like there's a bunch of Androids or robots walking around functioning like a normal human.

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Eh...the AI problems won’t likely manifest itself as a bunch of T-1000 killing machines. And it’s not likely going to be sitting on one physical server in some building somewhere.

It will likely be completely decentralized and cloud based so it can have unimpeded access to all of the worlds data. The problem comes when we get to the point where not only is it doing all of our thinking for us, but it’s solely responsible for its own development. At that point it becomes self-aware and it won’t be long before it’s self-interested

And if our interests don’t align with its interests, who wins? Sam Harris put it well. It’s not that AI will become spontaneously malevolent, it’s that it might act in complete disregard to our own existence and nobody knows what that could mean.

So then what real affect can they have other than to disrupt our modern way of life? It's not like they're going to destroy us. They don't have the capability when it's just software and they're not existing in the physical realm.

They'll never gain any kind of threatening autonomy until they make the leap into a physical body. Until then they're just 1s and 0s, just software and their damage will be limited to Software.

Can it be used to make sex dolls?

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A 256 physical qubit machine will not be able to break standard encryption. Shor’s algorithm requires error correction which no one has right now, and even then the estimates are millions to billions of qubits. So yes, the end goal is certainly to crack codes but we’re far off and it won’t be milliseconds with current gate speeds.

Additionally, computer scientists have been developing encryption that quantum can’t break. It will continue being an arms race just like encryption has always been.

Reference: I have a PhD in this.

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Yeah but after 5 unsuccessful log in attempts the account is locked and the quantum computer will have to contact the network administrator.

The cryogenic temperatures are probably needed to allow the computer's material of construction to become superconductive. As to how the construction and function of a quantum computer differs from a binary computer, I remember having a general understanding of it years ago after reading a few wiki articles, but that was too many beers ago.

......hey what can I say. Man is determined to blow himself off the face of this good earth. You do realize it's just a matter of time before some looney dictator in a third world country acquires nuclear capability and the means to deliver.....Oh wait..........

Looks like were headed back to physical money.