http://simonwillison.net/2025-09-29T00:52:26+00:00Simon Willison2025-09-29T00:52:26+00:002025-09-29T00:52:26+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2025/Sep/29/scott-aaronson/#atom-tag

<blockquote cite="https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9183"><p>Given a week or two to try out ideas and search the literature, I’m pretty sure that Freek and I could’ve solved this problem ourselves. Instead, though, I simply asked GPT5-Thinking. After five minutes, it gave me something confident, plausible-looking, and (I could tell) wrong. But rather than laughing at the silly AI like a skeptic might do, I <em>told</em> GPT5 how I knew it was wrong. It thought some more, apologized, and tried again, and gave me something better. So it went for a few iterations, much like interacting with a grad student or colleague. [...]</p> <p>Now, in September 2025, I’m here to tell you that AI has finally come for what my experience tells me is the most quintessentially human of all human intellectual activities: namely, proving oracle separations between quantum complexity classes. Right now, it almost certainly <em>can’t</em> write the whole research paper (at least if you want it to be correct and good), but it can help you get unstuck if you otherwise know what you’re doing, which you might call a sweet spot.</p></blockquote> <p class="cite">&mdash; <a href="https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9183">Scott Aaronson</a>, UT Austin Quantum Information Center</p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/quantum-computing">quantum-computing</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai">ai</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/generative-ai">generative-ai</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms">llms</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/llm-reasoning">llm-reasoning</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/gpt-5">gpt-5</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/gpt">gpt</a></p>

2017-10-08T02:49:58+00:002017-10-08T02:49:58+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2017/Oct/8/quantum/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/security/china-successfully-demonstrates-quantum-encryption-by-hosting-a-video-call">China Demonstrates Quantum Encryption By Hosting a Video Call</a></strong></p> This reads like pure science fiction:</p> <blockquote> <p>Pan’s team first established a connection and generated a secure key between a ground station in Xinglong and the Micius satellite as it passed overhead, orbiting about 500 kilometers above Earth. [...]</p> <p>Next, the Chinese team waited for Micius to pass over Vienna, where their collaborators at the Austria Academy of Sciences were waiting to also receive the key from the satellite. Then, with the keys in hand, the groups initiated a video conference and used those keys to encrypt the video data through a standard VPN protocol.</p> </blockquote> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/encryption">encryption</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/quantum-computing">quantum-computing</a></p>