Scott Aaronson on Quantum Computing, Unsolvable Problems & AI 🚀

Scott Aaronson is the David J. Bruton Centennial Professor of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center. Previously, he taught for nine years in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. His research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally.

Scott also writes the blog Shtetl Optimized: https://scottaaronson.blog/

Steve and Scott discuss:

1. Scott's childhood and education, first exposure to mathematics and computers.

2. How he became interested in computational complexity, pursuing it rather than AI/ML.

3. The development of quantum computation and quantum information theory from the 1980s to the present. Scott's work on quantum supremacy.

4. AGI, AI Safety

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
--
Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve. Find transcripts of each episode at https://manifold1.com.