quantum computer. will it hurt chess theory?

#130
Yes, the engines affect the upper 1% of the chess population, but it trickles down from there.
For example AlphaZero played games pushing its h-pawn, grandmasters picked it up from AlphaZero and now lower rated players picked it up from grandmasters.
For example the popularity of the Berlin and Grünfeld stems from AlphaZero.

Well, the Berlin was successfully used by Kramnik to avoid losing with black against Kasparov. I don't think any more advertisement was necessary.

Here is a progress report: 2000 qubits
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01741-6 

It is very unclear what the "best" quantum computers are. The number of qubits is not the whole story - quantum annealing is different to the quantum computing associated with much smaller numbers of qubits. And I get the distinct impression that the Chinese are not being entirely open about their very advanced work (probably due to the conclusion that quantum supremacy would be of considerable value to the state).

There is much that is not known about the potential capabilities of quantum computing. Even down to uncertainty about key theorems. Here is a section on complexity of quantum computing from Wikipedia.

We don't know how scalable quantum computing can be yet. There are serious practical hurdles in the way and perhaps, as yet, undiscovered theoretical limitations.

@132
Quantum computers are commercially available from several vendors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_quantum_processors 

#133: None of those are even close to outperforming classical computers at Chess and there may be a scalability ceiling which prevents future quantum computers from doing so.

I have not even heard of a quantum computer that could be used to do anything with chess. I have discussed the possibility of solving chess with one, but the requirements are way beyond present technology (it requires a fairly large number of qubits and substantial quantum circuitry. I I think I heard recently of a 500-gate quantum circuit with useful performance.  For comparison, a popular microcomputer chip that was used in decent hobby machines is the 6502, which had a mere 3510 active transistors (and a smaller number of logic gates, perhaps around 1000?)

But quantum computing is different. All gates need to be unitary and reversible and every part of the system is entangled.

@135
It is possible to run a Python program on commercially available cloud quantum computers.
D-Wave offers Ocean. https://www.dwavesys.com/solutions-and-products/developer/ 
IBM offers Qiskit. https://www.ibm.com/quantum 
Google offers Cirq. https://quantumai.google/cirq/google/concepts
It is possible to translate the open source Stockfish from C++ to Python.

It is thinkable, to use it to generate endgame table bases.
Tromp has demonstrated a 1 to 1 relation between natural numbers 1, 2... N and chess positions.
That means a table base can be simplified to an array of N bits: 0 = draw, 1 = no draw.
Initialise all N bits to 1.
Set the bits of the 7-men endgame table base draws to 0.
Set the bits of the 8-men positions that lead to a 7-men position with bit = 0 also to 0.
Set the bits of the 8-men positions that lead to a 8-men position with bit = 0 also to 0.
This leads to a short 8-men endgame table base.
The bit says draw = 0, or no draw = 1, but it is obvious if a no draw is a win or a loss.
The bit says only draw or no draw and not how,
but that can be derived from exploring the possible moves and seeing if it is 0 or 1.
Most of the processing can be done parallel instead of sequential,
using the unique properties of the quantum computer.

ChatGPT is unusually short-spoken this time.

Yes. it will hurt and not only chess or many other facets regarding I.T. as crypto e.g.

Has no thing to do with quantum tech smartie.

Google is the only 1 having a quantum pc as far as publicly known and they know the risks.

The use of quantum computers opens up new possibilities for solving complex chess problems, such as generating endgame table bases.
The unique properties of quantum computers, such as parallel processing, could potentially revolutionize the way chess positions are analyzed and evaluated.
For more insights into the intersection of quantum computing and chess theory, this pioneer in quantum computing has some useful resources if you're interested.

They might. I have not seen a single example of someone being specific about this (other than my own amateurish attempt to describe how a quantum computer to generate a tablebase could work - the details have not been critically reviewed by an expert on QC)!

As a chess enthusiast, I can see why the idea of quantum computers might raise some concerns, but I think they'll actually benefit chess theory. Quantum computers have the potential to revolutionize the way we analyze positions and solve complex problems, thanks to their ability to process vast amounts of possibilities simultaneously. If you're interested in learning more about how quantum computing intersects with chess, https://quantumaiplatform.com/ offers some excellent resources. They dive into the details of how quantum principles can be applied to chess analysis, providing fascinating insights into this cutting-edge technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity

There should be a 2nd array for 0= draw or loss, 1=win, that's only checked when the first array has a "1" in it, no?

I dont think that's from a chatbot, my bruh