Description: Welcome to another episode of The New Quantum Era Podcast hosted by Kevin Rowney and Sebastian Hassinger. Today, they are joined by Scott Aaronson, who is a leading authority in the space of Quantum Computing, a fascinating person with a long list of relevant achievements. Scott is also the author of an outstanding blog called Shtetl-Optimize and a book named Quantum Computing Since Democritus. Scott helped design Google Quantum Supremacy, but his work exceeds it; he is involved in Complexity Theory and Computer Science and is just extremely good at connecting, explaining, and digging deeper into concepts. Key Takeaways: [3:38] How did Scott get into quantum computing? [11:35] Scott talks about the moment when the question arose: Does nature work this way? [14:28] Scott shares when he realized he wanted to dig deeper into Quantum Computing. [15:56] Scott remembers when he proved the limitation of quantum algorithms for a variation of Grover's search problem. [18:43] Scott realized that his competitive advantage was the ability to explain how things work. [20:01] Scott explains the collision problem. [21:33] Scott defines the birthday paradox. [23:24] Scott discusses the dividing line between serious and non-serious quantum computing research. [24:11]  What's Scott’s relative level of faith and optimism that the areas of topological quantum computing and measurement-based quantum computation are going to produce? [28:33] Scott talks about what he thinks will be the source of the first practical quantum speed-up.  [31:55] Scott didn’t imagine that being a complexity theorist would become exponential. [36:14] Is Scott optimistic about quantum walks?  [40:11] Has Scott returned to his machine learning and AI roots but is now trying to explain the concepts?  [42:03] Scott was asked: ‘What is it going to take to get you to stop wasting your life on quantum computing?’ [44:50] Scott talks about the future need to prevent  AI misuse. and his role in Open AI [47:41] Scott emphasizes the need for an external source that can point out your errors. [50:13] Scott shares his thoughts about the possible risks and misuses of GPT. [51:40] Scott made GPT to take a Quantum Computing exam; what did surprise him about the answers? It did much better on conceptual questions than on calculation questions [55:55] What kind of validation will we be able to give GPT? [56:22] Scott explains how RLHF (Reinforced Learning from Human Feedback) works. [59:28] Does Scott feel that there's room for optimism that educators can have a decent tool to hunt down this kind of plagiarism? [1:02:08] Is there anything that Scott is excited about seeing implemented on 1000 gate-based qubits with a decent amount of error mitigation?  [1:04:05] Scott shares his interest in designing better quantum supremacy experiments. [1:07:43] Could these quantum supremacy experiments (based on random circuit sampling) already deliver a scalable advantage?  [1:10:58] Kevin and Sebastian share the highlights of a fun and enlightening conversation with Scott Aaronson. Mentioned in this episode: Visit The New Quantum Era Podcast Check Shtetl-Optimize Quantum Computing Since Democritus, Scott Aaronson Learn more about the Adiabatic Algorithm result by Hastings and the Quantum Walk Algorithm result by Childs et Al. Tweetables and Quotes: “The dividing line between serious and nonserious quantum computing research is, are you asking the question of, ‘Can you actually be the best that a classical computer could do at the same desk? “ — Scott Aaronson “My first big result in quantum computing that got me into the field was to prove that Prasad Hoyer tap algorithm for the collision problem was optimal.”  — Scott Aaronson “ Quantum Walks are  a way of achieving Grover type speed ups at a wider range of problems than you would have expected.” — Scott Aaronson “AI safety is now a subject where you can get feedback.”  — Scott Aaro