I don't share your mistrust of the aesthetic, but I think it's pretty natural to be skeptical of the out-group, so to speak, doubly so if you have no practical way of verifying their claims. At least you're honest about it!

I guess something to think about it that amongst a group like the "burners" there is huge variety in individual experience and skill. And even within a single human mind it's possible to have radically groundbreaking thoughts in one domain, and simultaneously be a total crack-pot in another. Linus Pauling and the vitamin C thing comes to mind. There's no such thing as an average person!

I guess we'll see what the quantum experts have to say about this in the weeks to come =)

> I immediately start to approach the author of this with distrust:

> * He's writing about multiverses

> * He's claiming a quantum performance for something that would take a classical computer septillions of years.

> I'm a layman in this domain

I think your skepticism is well-founded. But as you learn more about the field, you learn what parts are marketing/hype bullshit, and what parts are not, and how to translate from the bullshit to the underlying facts.

IMO:

> He's writing about multiverses

The author's pet theory, no relevance to the actual science being done.

* He's claiming a quantum performance for something that would take a classical computer septillions of years.

The classical computer is running a very naive algorithm, basically brute-force. It is very easy to write a classical algorithm which is very slow. But still, in the field, it takes new state-of-the-art classical algorithms run on medium size clusters to get results that are on-par with recent quantum computers. Not even much better, just on-par.

> Or is this just how technology breakthroughs start (after all the Transformer paper wasn't)

You could say that. It's not truly a breakthrough, but it is one more medium-size step in a rapidly advancing field.

The hall of great scientists is packed with holders of strange beliefs. Half of Newton's writings were on religious speculation, alchemy, and the occult. One of Einstein's very favorite books was Blavatsky's "Isis Unveiled". Just about every key person in early QM was deep into the Vedas. Kary Mullis was an AIDS denialist, and questioned the utility of his own test as a virus detector. If you really think about it, you will see that this phenomenon arises more from necessity than coincidence.

I know Hartmut Neven personally and professionally, and have for decades. He's not anything like you claim he is. Attacking him for wearing a wristband? That's an ad hominem attack, and not worthy of my time to counter you on.

The fact is that "Burners" are everywhere, nothing about Burning Man means someone is automatically a quack. Your distrust seems misplaced and colored by your own personal biases. The list of prominent people in tech that are also "burners" would likely shock you. I doubt you've ever been to Burning Man, but you're going to judge people who have? Maybe you're just feeling a little bit too "square" and are threatened by people who live differently than you do.

Yes, Hartmut has a style, yes, he enjoys his lifestyle, no, he's not a quack. You don't have to believe me, and I don't expect that you will, but I've talked at length with him about his work, and about a great many other topics, and he is not as you think he is.

Your comment here says far more about you than it says about Hartmut Neven.

> I know Hartmut Neven personally and professionally, and have for decades

I don't want to put you on the spot too much, but can you speak to why he included the part about many-worlds in this blog post?

I don't know enough about Google to say if maybe someone else less technical wrote that, or if he is being pressured to put sci-fi sounding terms in his posts, or if he believes Google's quantum computer is actually testing many-worlds, or some other reason I can't think of.

> Attacking him for wearing a wristband? That's an ad hominem attack, and not worthy of my time to counter you on.

I picked my words very carefully and I would appreciate if you responded to what I said, not what you think I implied.

I specifically called out - I'm having feelings of bias. That in a field full of quack science and overpromises and underdelivery, I am extraordinarily suspicious of anyone who I feel might be associated with a shall we say "less than rigorous relationship with scientific accuracy". This person's aesthetic reminds me of this.

> The fact is that "Burners" are everywhere, nothing about Burning Man means someone is automatically a quack. Your distrust seems misplaced and colored by your own personal biases. The list of prominent people in tech that are also "burners" would likely shock you. I doubt you've ever been to Burning Man, but you're going to judge people who have? Maybe you're just feeling a little bit too "square" and are threatened by people who live differently than you do.

You couldn't be more wrong. I'm a repeat Burner throughout the 2000's (though it's been a decade), and I've been to a dozen regional Burner events. I know many Burners both in the tech industry and outside of it.

So I actually speak with some experience. I know wonderful people who are purely artists and are not scientifically/technologically inclined - and they're great. I also know deep technologists for whom Burning man is purely an aesthetic preference - a costume not an outfit. Something to pretend to be for a little while but that otherwise has no bearing on their outside life.

And I unfortunately know those whose brainrot ends up intertwining. Crypto evangelists who find healing crystals just as groundbreaking as the blockchain. It's this latter category that I am the most suspicious of, and what I worry when I see a person presented as an authoritative leader in the Quantum Computing domain demonstrate in their external presentation.

I led with an acknowledgement that I am judging a book by it's cover, which one ought to never do. But I think it is worth pointing out because respectability in a cutting edge field is important, lest you end up achieving technological breakthroughs that don't actually change society at all (as already happened with Google Glass).

> You don't have to believe me, and I don't expect that you will,

Why would you expect that I wouldn't?

> but I've talked at length with him about his work, and about a great many other topics, and he is not as you think he is.

That's fantastic to hear! You have direct evidence contradicting the assumptions generated by my first impression. This is all that matters, and all you had to say.

>who I feel

You're basing things on your feelings, not personally knowing the person. I know you've alluded to that, but seriously, just stop.

> I worry when I see a person presented as an authoritative leader in the Quantum Computing domain demonstrate in their external presentation.

I'm not sure why how someone dresses makes you worry, especially since you aren't even involved in QC. Stop worrying about things you can't control, especially someone else's appearance. Has Burning Man taught you nothing? If you think it taught you to be biased towards someone based on their appearance, then I think you completely missed the point.

>as already happened with Google Glass

You may not know this, but he was tapped to lead the Google Glass project, and quickly got out of it. He felt that the silicon at the time was not capable of producing the results people wanted in the form-factor they were expecting. He was right. Of course tech has improved since then and better VR/AR glasses in a convenient form factor are just now starting to be a thing, but Google Glass is long since shuttered.

He didn't just come out of nowhere, he's been involved in actual AI (not LLMs) for decades. His company was bought by Google and is the basis for their computer vision systems, which is how he ended up at Google.

As for you supposing he's into "healing crystals" or any other wooo nonsense simply based on how he dresses, I have never known him to talk about such things at all, in all our conversations throughout the decades.

> This person's aesthetic reminds me of this.

You are barking up the wrong tree, and you should maybe tone down your judginess of others. I have news for you - you can't tell a book by its cover, but you sure are trying to. You just come off as being jealous that someone can have fun and also be a pioneer in QC. No doubt any person at the top of their field has plenty of haters, based on nothing more than "he doesn't dress like I expect him to".