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Comment by thrance | Hacker News Reader

Every communication or marketing I have ever seen done by quantum computing actors has been about very "classical" problems: finance, clean energy, AI...

It's all snake oil, obviously. Those are keywords thrown out for VC money. IMO, there would be no way for this many companies to raise this much money if the investors knew what kind of problems quantum computing is really addressing.

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The people who claim that current quantum computers are useful for classical problems contribute to "Quantum hype" which is frowned upon by most members of the community.

I mean, I wish. I have met these so-called giants of the field when I was at conference (they had a yearly big-brains meeting the same time, same place). I bet they talk about classic stuff because otherwise they wouldn't get funding. Quantum mechanics and using quantum computers for quantum problems actually would have convinced me. But who cares about me. What they need this is this thing called MONEY and that doesn't come with intellectually interesting problems -- it comes with overinflated claims over things that the committee understands. So classical problems it is. Can't blame them playing the game, but at the same time, I wonder how they look into the mirror at night.

To be fair, this is what academics in basically every field do.

If you prove a useless result about an exotic construction in your niche topology, you mention that recently topology has been successfully applied i.e. in data science. If you study some pathological convergencs properties if unheard of stochastic processes, you cite Black-Scholes equation and remind the reader of its importance in finance.

Indeed, this is how the game is played.

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