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Comment by abrichr | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how this squares up with https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/quantum-computing-hype-bad-sc... :

> Crazy headlines abound: "quantum computing will change life as we know it," "quantum computing will solve global warming," "Quantum computing will revolutionize science and industry," etc etc. These statements are not based on any research or reality at all, they are not even wishful thinking. The number of known quantum algorithms, which promise advantage over classical computation, is just a few (and none of them will "solve global warming" for sure). More importantly, exactly zero such algorithms have been demonstrated in practice so far and the gap between what’s needed to realize them and the currently available hardware is huge, and it's not just a question of numbers. There are qualitative challenges with scaling up, which will likely take decades to resolve (if ever).

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Quantum computing may not be all it's cracked up to be , but i 'm ok with some smart people becoming newly minted millionaires by investors with excess wealth.

Hmmm isn’t that fraud? If not legal fraud it sounds ethically very dubious. Edit: I’m specifically referring to the GP comment and not the overall discussion.

it s a form of redistribution

100%.

Why are we OK with smart people ripping anyone off? Just because investors have excess wealth it’s OK to steal from them?

without trying to be extra provocative, but we are A-OK with rich people ripping people off by exploiting their weaknesses, addictions or lack of oversight, so the reverse is not much different.

Capitalism has a place for borderline, gray, unethical-but-legal 'frauds'

This is clearly a strawman, so good job not being “extra provocative”. Please drop the Robin Hood complex and try to have an intellectually honest conversation.

I think thee assumption is that the investors have likely stolen from people, through perfectly legal yet ethically dubious means many consider theft but isn't defined in law as theft (deceit, disproportionate reward of effort, etc.). Often the type of theft uses indirection or is difficult to quantify.

You tend not to get investment level rich/wealthy without playing in the ethical grey areas, skirting laws, and/or taking calculated risks of breaking laws to capture more than you actually directly produce.

Not always the case but it tends to be the case from many peoples' world views. As such, it's viewed more as a thief stealing from a thief, where most have little pitty for either thief.

> Quantum computing may not be all it's cracked up to be , but i 'm ok with some smart people becoming newly minted millionaires by investors with excess wealth.

Unfortunately, SPACs are mostly a way for those with "excess wealth" (the investor class) to leech off of mom and pops (retail investors).

The sponsors basically get interest free loans to seek out acquisitions of companies that in most cases wouldn't be public markets material and when they consummate a merger, they can walk away with millions upon millions of dollars in fees even if the SPAC performs horribly. When a SPAC performs well, their profits are almost always massively disproportionate to the money they invested and risk they took.

Fortunately in this case, even if quantum computing might not be all it's cracked up to be, Rigetti is a "full-stack" quantum computing company, so it's an amazing opportunity. /s

Unfortunately i don't think you understand how a SPAC works. Retail gets burned, original investors make money through liquidity and so do the executives and whoever brought the SPAC to the market as long as the company doesn't crash and burn before 6 month lock-up.

What you are unintentionally saying is that you don't care if a bunch of smart people just made money off mom and pop (retail) investors if it turns out to be over hyped and doesn't derive value.

> just made money off mom and

You make it sound so bad but maybe it really IS bad. Maybe it's better that these smart people make some money, while moving the field of quantum optics somewhat further, than if some advertisers do.

Only reason I say it is bad is because the insider really know if this is going to perform well or not - SPACs have not traditionally done well and have left mom and pop // retail investors as the bag holders in many cases. I mean you could say what the pied piper of SPACS (Chamath Palihapitiya) said which is "do your own due diligence" but he was highly conflicted when he said that (hyping SPAC deals that have since shed significant value while make money on the initial transactions).

To be fair we still have to see how the SPACs from the last year perform over the next 5 years. My guess is that they went to the public markets when it was rich and retail investment was high though the future is unwritten.

I just wanted to correct your assertion that it was the wealthy that are paying for this, when in fact it is likely just retail investors who will hold the end result (whether good or bad).

For those interested, longform article about SPACs: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/07/the-pied-piper...

Caveat Emptor. Probably better odds than PowerBall at least. But yes, avoid, avoid, avoid IMO. You can't stop people from trying to get rich quick.

"Mom and pop" retail investors aren't making substantial investments in SPACs without ample warning. Mom and pop are mostly in ETFs.

I don't believe anyone unaware of the risk is systematically or substantially investing in SPACs.

investing in bleeding edge companies will always be risky. Why not let investors take the risk, and may be these engineering challenges will get solved due to monetary motivations!

Because the problem is not the money. Although I think that SPAC represent some sort of arbitrage (otherwise there were not so much of them in the last year). I.e. it does not really matter what the SPAC invest in, as long as it is a good story.

> The number of known quantum algorithms, which promise advantage over classical computation, is just a few

Not at all well versed in the topic, but to me, we are at ENIAC stage of quantum - those few algorithms where quantum has an advantage provide a huge advantage worth a high price tag to those who need them - so this shouldn't be a real worry for some level of viability, technical concerns aside (which are not insignificant, as you point out) - but also as you highlight, 'some level of viability' is not the same as 'instant changes everywhere', so perceptions of hype-vs-reality in the general population is a different question

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