Until computers and robots make quantum advances, they basically remain adding machines: capable only of doing things in which all the variables are controlled and predictable.
Interpretation
Computers and robots are limited in their capabilities until they achieve significant advancements, particularly in handling unpredictable variables.
In this quote, Michio Kaku emphasizes the current limitations of computers and robots, which function primarily as advanced calculators or 'adding machines'. He suggests that for true advancement in artificial intelligence and robotics to occur, these machines must evolve to manage unpredictability and operate effectively in complex, real-world situations. The statement highlights the gap between present technological capabilities and future possibilities, underscoring the need for leaps in quantum computing and machine learning.
In practice
In a tech conference, you could start your speech by saying, 'As Michio Kaku points out, until computers and robots make quantum advances, they remain just adding machines.'
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Some advice: keep the flame of curiosity and wonderment alive, even when studying for boring exams. That is the well from which we scientists draw our nourishment and energy. And also, learn the math. Math is the language of nature, so we have to learn this language.
After that cancellation [of the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas, after $2 billion had been spent on it], we physicists learned that we have to sing for our supper. ... The Cold War is over. You can't simply say "Russia!" to Congress, and they whip out their checkbook and say, "How much?" We have to tell the people why this atom-smasher is going to benefit their lives.
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In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.
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We will soon create intelligences greater than our own ... When this happens, human history will have reached a kind of singularity, an intellectual transition as impenetrable as the knotted space-time at the center of a black hole, and the world will pass far beyond our understanding.
You can't solve a problem with the management of technology with more technology.
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