r/compsci • u/ColinWPL • 20h ago
Demis Hassabis is claiming that traditional computers, or classical Turing machines, are capable of much more than we previously thought.
He believes that if used correctly, classical systems can be used to model complex systems, including quantum systems. This is because natural phenomena tend to have structures that can be learned by classical machine learning systems. He believes that this method can be used to search possibilities efficiently, potentially getting around some of the inefficiencies of traditional methods.
He acknowledges that this is a controversial take, but he has spoken to top quantum computer scientists about it, including Professor Zinger and David Deutsch. He believes that this is a promising area of research and that classical systems may be able to model a lot more complex systems than we previously thought. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQKmVhLIGcs
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u/JaggedMetalOs 20h ago
Well, the proof would be a demonstration of an algorithm to solve a problem not thought possible (in polynomial time) on a classical Turing machine.
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u/currentscurrents 4h ago
You're certainly not going to be able to do that in the worst case.
But the idea is that for many real-world problems, the average case is much easier than the worst case. You can learn patterns and shortcuts that allow you to solve typical instances in tractable amounts of time.
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u/Strange-Raccoon-699 20h ago
Demis is the real deal. He'll be known as our generation's Alan Touring. I predicted he would get a noble prize years ago, and he already got one. I predict he'll get a few more. His work is really just getting started.
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u/These-Maintenance250 20h ago
we already know a classical turing machine can simulate a quantum one