The cell phone you have in your pocket is thousands of times more powerful than the computer that was used to land humans on the moon.
In the future, computers will be thousands of times more powerful than your smart phone…because of quantum computing.
It will usher in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
But just how does quantum computing work?
Our computers are doubling in power about every 2 years. But at its core, it is really a very simple device.
Even the most complex computers today are just fancy calculators. They recognize only two things, Yes or no, on or off. A computer works with only two numbers, a zero or a one, heads or tails – that is it.
Essentially the brains of a computer consists of on/off switches like the light switch in your house. These are called transistors.The transistors in a computer work by either being on or off.
When it’s on, it is a 1. When it is off, it is a 0. This is why it’s called binary language.
Every piece of data is represented by these switches. For example, all the letters of the alphabet can be represented by 7 switches or bits.
The more of these transistors we have inside a computer, the more information it can process.
So the smaller we can make them, the more we can fit inside the small frame of a computer.
The problem is that we have almost reached the limit of how small we can make these transistors.
Today we can fit a few billion of these switches onto a chip the size of your fingernail.
Instead of bits, a quantum computer has quantum bits or qubits, which work in a really crazy way. Instead of either a zero or a 1, heads or tails – a qubit can store a zero and one at the same time.
So imagine flipping a coin, a regular computer only recognizes a head or a tail. A quantum computer can recognize or deal with all the possibilities in between.
So the computing power of a Quantum computer is potentially limitless, or at least much much greater than a conventional computer.
So what does this mean for you and me?
Well, we should be able to solve much more complex problems that require the processing magnitudes more data.
For example, imagine being able to accurately predict the weather months or even a year in advance.
We will be able to develop new drugs because quantum computers will be able to accurately model the behavior of chemicals at the molecular level.
Recent scientific papers point to evidence that the root of our consciousness may be at the quantum level in the human brain.
It this is true, we will be able to create computers with true artificial intelligence, becauseits computing power will rival and even exceed that of the human brain.
And if it is true that consciousness occurs at the quantum level, we will have created the first conscious sentient being.
We may beplaying the role of God.
Will we be a benevolent god, or a malevolent god?
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