Step aside, binary logic

Botch

Interesting story on 60 Minutes tonight.  Supposedly IBM will be introducing their newly-developed "quantum computing" machine tomorrow; something that they said "China, IBM, Meta, Apple, Raytheon, etc" were all racing to develop first.  
A transistor is the rudimentary logic device, a device that can store one bit of information: On, or Off (Zero, or One).  If you have enough of these "bits", you can solve many problems, from simple math thru AI, provided you have enough of these switches/bits.  I did read about a possible "trinary" logic system, with three states (Zero, One, and Two) many, many years ago, and it made sense you could solve many more equations with far fewer switches, but I never heard anything more about it.
"Quantum Computing", on the other hand, somehow records info onto all the different states that subatomic particles can hold, per quantum physics (a college course that I managed to pass, but never understood).  The example they gave was flipping a coin; it lands either heads, or tails (0, or 1).  But in quantum coin flipping the coin can have a near-infinite number of angles before it lands, and that's what these new machines can use.  The tech does require supercooling the core itself, and they didn't mention which element(s) the core was using.  
Could be an interesting news day tomorrow, and possibly quantum computing can save Humanity from AI before it even becomes a definable threat.  I'll post the 60 Minutes story when they publish it.  

JohnInCarolina

@Botch - look up the company IonQ when you get a chance

Legume

Wouldn't more computing power just empower AI?

JohnInCarolina

Legume said:

Wouldn't more computing power just empower AI?

Yes.

Botch

Legume said:

Wouldn't more computing power just empower AI?

Most of my attempts at humor/irony miss the mark.