Artificial intelligence
is the hottest new thing in technology
right now.
But my next guest says
there's something else
we should be paying attention to.
Quantum computing It is an emerging field
that aims to use the weird
properties of quantum particles
to make computers
that have vastly more processing
power than computers. Have today.
And that could help us solve
all kinds of difficult problems.
I spoke to the famous physicist
Michio Kaku,
who has a new book
called Quantum Supremacy How the Quantum
Computer Revolution
Will Change Everything.
Michio Kaku, welcome again.
Tell me what.
What's your take on the A.I.
chat bots chatbot
that everybody is so obsessed by now?
I think the media is hyperventilate
over the implications of these chat bots.
First of all, they are productive.
They're going to speed up the ability
to produce materials.
It's going to be an advance
for society in general.
However,
people are focusing
on the negative aspects
of chatbots as well
because people are afraid however,
what is a chat bot?
A chat bot is a glorified tape recorder.
It takes snippets of what's on the web
created by a human Splices them together
and passages off
as if it created these things.
And people are saying, Oh my God,
it's a human.
It's human.
Like the checkbox
simply rearranges
whatever on the Internet.
Already,
it's a tape
recorder of a very advanced type
that is not understand truth.
What is false
does not understand
slander versus reality.
That has to be put in by a human
So the real shift
that you say is going to take
place is once
we get to quantum computing.
We've gone through three
basic stages of computer revolution.
First stage
was when we computed
with sticks,
stones, levers, gears, pulleys, string.
That was the first stage,
the analog stage.
Then comes World War Two.
At that point,
we switched to electricity
and we switched to transistors,
and they gave us the microchip
and the digital revolution. Of today.
We're in stage two,
which is the ones and zeros.
The bit, the bits and bytes.
That's right.
Zeros and ones. Zeros and ones.
But Mother Nature would laugh at us
because Mother Nature
does not use zeros and ones.
Zeros and ones.
Mother Nature computes on electrons,
electron waves,
waves that create molecule holes.
And that's why we're now
entering stage three.
Silicon Valley could become a Rust Belt
unless they get on the bandwagon.
But, but.
But would it be fair to say that
this the shift that you're describing.
Quantum computing,
basically, we're now trying to mimic
what nature does because an electron
is not a particle,
it's a wave or it's sort of both.
And that's where computing has to go.
By God, I think you got it.
That's exactly what we're talking about.
Because, for example,
take a look at a transistor.
The transistor has two states up
and down, left and right.
True and false.
So think of an atom
that spins either up or down to states.
The digital revolution is
based on that idea.
However,
a quantum computer can be at any angle.
Now, think about that.
There are infinitely more states
that you can create
if an electron is allowed to wobble
and point in any direction whatsoever.
Rather than up or down.
So quantum computing is computing
using not computer chips, but using these
waves or these.
That's right.
The various states of these waves,
these waves can vibrate in any direction.
And there are simultaneous
so that it can actually calculate
two or three places at the same time.
So think of a mouse in a maze.
A digital computer.
We calculate the trajectory of each mouse
at every joint,
at every place
where there's a decision
to be made in a maze that takes forever.
Now, Quantum
Computer instantly analyzes
all possible modes,
all possible trajectories simultaneously.
Now, that violates
common sense
that you cannot be two places
at the same time.
Well, get with it.
In the quantum theory,
you can be many places at the same time.
And that's the power of
quantum computers.
What would it look like?
Would my laptop look the same?
When you look at a quantum computer,
it's like a chandelier.
A gigantic device.
But the actual
the actual computation is done
at the very bottom.
What is this chandelier?
The chandelier is cooling pipes.
Cooling pipes
to bring it down to near
absolute zero
where there's no vibrations.
If somebody sneeze is a block away,
that could ruin your whole calculation.
And so you want everything to be frozen
near absolute zero.
What I'm also struck by is
tell me if I'm wrong.
When you hear about all this
artificial intelligence
and the amount
of computing power
you need to produce this stuff
and the amount of energy
you need to run all these computers,
I always think, God,
the brain is very energy efficient.
We're able
to make all these calculations.
We don't need all this cooling
with somehow doing it
using much less energy
than these vast computers
with all of their heat.
Mother Nature is still ahead of us.
Our brain
is the most complex object
in the known universe.
We know of nothing in the universe
more complex than the human brain.
Which has 100 billion neurons,
each neuron
connected to 10,000 other neurons.
And it's all done at room temperature.
And so we're playing catch up,
catch up to Mother Nature.
And Mother Nature is quantum.
And that's what we have to make.
The transition
from digital computers
to quantum computers.
And that will allow us
to calculate diseases.
For example, there
at the quantum level,
cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease.
These are diseases
at the molecular level.
We're powerless to cure these diseases
because we have to learn
the language of nature,
which is the language of molecules and
and quantum electrons.
Michio Kaku, always a pleasure
to talk to you.