Joe Rogan Experience #1980 - Michio Kaku

(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Good to see you.

Hi. Yeah, glad to be on the show again.

My pleasure. The last time was fascinating, and, uh, you have, uh, sent me down a rabbit hole of, uh, UFO stories and, and reports and...

Mm-hmm.

Fascinating stuff. But, uh, let's talk about your, your latest book, which is on quantum computing, which is e- equally interesting, if not more interesting, 'cause it might lead us to become aliens. (laughs)

(laughs) We'll talk about that too.

Please. Um, so first of all, if you could, just tell everybody what it means. What it, what is quantum computing, and how does it work?

Well, there's a race going on, a race between China, the United States, between IBM and Google, a race to dominate the next generation of computers, because Silicon Valley could become a rust belt. Think about that. The digital computer of today could be like the abacus of years gone by. We're talking about the computer of today could become obsolete with this race to perfect the next generation, which is quantum computers. Instead of computing on transistors, we're computing on atoms. Think about that. This is the ultimate computer. There's nothing smaller than what you can do with atoms, and that's what these qu- quantum computers compute with, and it raises all sorts of problems. The CIA is worried that quantum computers will break right through the CIA and any, any kind of, uh, barrier being placed around your secrets. Industries are going to be created out of nothing. Medicine is going to be turned upside down. Energy production, society, entertainment, every aspect of society will be changed with quantum computers, and that's why there's this race, a race to perfect the quantum computer.

How far f- from the finish line do you think they are?

Uh, we're still years away. First of all, we've actually built one. Uh, different companies h- are fielding quantum computers. They're kind of primitive, but some computers, some quantum computers, are actually millions of times more powerful than our supercomputer for certain definite tasks. But it may take another decade or so before we get all the, all the kinks out and it becomes part of everyday life. But it's gonna change everything in the same way that the transistor changed everything, the world economy, medicine, art, science. Everything was changed with the microchip. Same thing with the quantum computer.

It's, it's very difficult for us. There's only been a few, uh, science fiction authors who have been able to do this successfully, where they can accurately predict what the future's gonna look like. I mean, even they're off usually. You know, HG Wells had some pretty good ideas. But, wh- are we looking at something that we almost don't have a reference for, that it's so mind-blowingly different and much more powerful than anything we've experienced so far that it's h- it's difficult for us to imagine how much it's gonna change the world?