Comment by lbriner

I might be way-off here but although Bell Labs produced the various transistors we have grown to love, these were a relatively simple set of variables with a known problem, it can only take so long testing these combinations of temperature, acidity, material etc. to get pointed in the right direction (no offence to these clever men, it was still hard).

Quantum computing is orders of magnitude more complex and requires an enormous number of things to be tried individually and in combination and not using a strip of metal with a wire glued to it on a wooden bench but using enormously expensive and specialist equipment. I can see how the Automated Turk model would work for these types of problems.

That said, I could imagine something like this working perhaps in another arena like solving drinking dirty water, developing country toilets, other engineering problems.