IonQ’s CEO Interview Focuses on Quantum Computing’s Future Impact on Strong AI and Machine Learning

(VentureBeat) IonQ CEO Peter Chapman was interviewed last month by VentureBeat and the conversation quickly turned to a discussion of quantum computing’s future impact on AI and ML.
Strong AI is the idea that a machine could one day understand or learn any intellectual task that a human can. “AI in the Strong AI sense, that I have more of an opinion [about], just because I have more experience in that personally,” Chapman told VentureBeat. “And I do think that those kinds of things for Strong AI look quite promising. It’s actually one of the reasons I joined IonQ.”
“We now know the brain is not an electrical computer, but an electrochemical one,” he added. “Sadly, today’s computers do not have the processing power to be able to simulate the chemical interactions across discrete parts of the neuron, such as the dendrites, the axon, and the synapse. And even with Moore’s law, they won’t next year or even after a million years.”
“Similarly, it’s likely Strong AI isn’t classical, it’s quantum mechanical as well,” Chapman said.
One of IonQ’s competitors, D-Wave, argues that quantum computing and machine learning are “extremely well matched.” Chapman is still on the fence.
“I haven’t spent enough time to really understand it,” he admitted. “There clearly [are] a lot of people who think that ML and quantum have an overlap.
Whether Strong AI or ML, IonQ isn’t particularly interested in either. The company leaves that to its customers and future partners.