For over 20 years, Ray Kurzweil (well before Amy Webb, therefore) has been warning us that exponentiality will accelerate everything in a way we’ve never imagined. We had a taste of this with the speed at which ChatGPT entered our lives. Generative AI. Well, know that it was just a small glimpse.
The best lecture for me at the last SXSW was in one of those smaller rooms of the event, not so crowded, by two Canadian scientist brothers, Romi and Shalev Lifshitz. Shalev has a master’s in AI. Romi specializes in Quantum Computing.
Shalev explained to us how AI mimics the human brain. And how AI is going beyond human language and becoming a machine-to-machine environment. AI creating AI (Amy mentioned this at the event). Below is a very simplified diagram of AI and the new darling of the moment, Generative AI.
Romi explained to us that quantum computing operates in the subatomic space. While a bit in conventional computing is made up of zeros and ones, the quantum bit (Qbit) is like electrons (or even smaller) within atoms.
AI is linear. In the quantum world, multiple physical events can occur simultaneously and in different places at the same time. The processing exponentiality becomes zillions of times superhuman. AI will seem like child’s play compared to Quantum AI and Quantum Machine Learning. Below is a diagram of Quantum AI.
Quantum AI consists of entangled particles and waves in the realm of subatomic physics, capable of performing tasks that AI cannot achieve today. In timeframes impossible to imagine. The scales range from tasks that AI would currently take years to complete, while Quantum AI will accomplish them in minutes.
AI is cognitive, meaning it deals with intelligence and understanding. Quantum Computing is not cognitive. It’s not concerned with communicating with us or imitating our way of thinking. It’s for advanced science, which will result in unimaginable benefits for us, human beings. And we won’t necessarily need to understand it.
And if we insist on understanding, Generative AI will play its role. Like… a quantum Generative AI. When machines begin to operate on a subatomic level and AI takes on the role of communicating with us, we are in the antechamber of what Kurzweil calls the Singularity, when machine knowledge blends with human knowledge, in a future that will transcend biology. Exactly what you thought.
All these things fascinate me, while at the same time they scare me. But it’s what we have for now. And what Kurzweil always said we will have in the future.
Text by Pyr Marcondes, Senior Partner at Pipeline Capital.
Originally published in Meio & Mensagem.
