A group of quantum computing experts, including scientists and company officials, wants to raise ethical concerns about the technology’s ability to create new materials to accelerate war and human DNA treatment.
Six experts feature in a 13-minute video titled “Quantum Ethics: A Call to Action,” which goes live Monday on YouTube and the Quantum Daily, a free online store for quantum computer news .
The goal of the video, in which Alphabet has a quantum vice president Inc.’s
Google, is to start conversations with other oceanic computing industry leaders about the ethical implications of the technology.
“When we have new computing power, there is the potential for humanity to benefit, [but] you can think of ways in which it can harm people, ”said John Martinis, a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a former expert in quantum hardware at Google.
While quantum computers are still at an early stage, it’s important to start talking about the potential benefits and advantages of technology and finding a way to balance the two, he said. “You want to think ahead,” he said.
Dr Martinis and others such as Ilana Wisby, chief executive of quantum computing company Oxford Quantum Circuits, and Nick Farina, founder and chief executive of quantum computing hardware company EeroQ Corp., also feature in the short video.
Quantum computers have the ability to significantly accelerate drug and substance detection as well as complex financial-related calculations. Companies such as Visa Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., Roche Holding AG
and Volkswagen AG
they are all trying out early stage quantum technology.
Using quantum physics, quantum computers have the ability to sort through many opportunities in real time and find a likely solution. While traditional computers store information as either zeros or ones, quantum computers use pieces of quantities, or qubits, that represent and store information as both zeros and ones at the same time. .
A commercial-grade quantum computer has not yet been built, but startups and tech giants including Google, Microsoft Corp.
and International Business Tools Corp.
They are racing to commercialize the technology.
“This equates to a completely new business revolution,” said llyas Khan, founder and CEO of Cambridge Quantum Computing, which develops cybersecurity products, software and algorithms that companies can use when experimenting with quantum computers at an early stage. That power, in the wrong hands, could also be used to create harmful substances or to manipulate the human genome in a harmful way, he said. “We should have those conversations today,” said Mr. Khan, who was also in the video.
While it may take years to come up with ethical guidelines for quantum computers, Mr Khan said he is now starting to talk to UK government officials about these ethical issues. Technologies such as social media and data privacy may have had some ethical controls if ethics talks were held in the mid-1990s, he said. “We were asleep at the wheel,” Mr Khan said.
Experts are already preparing for some of the potential challenges of quantum computing. For example, financial services companies are preparing for a time when a powerful quantum computer could break some of the most widely used cryptographic techniques currently used in cybersecurity. Hundreds of the world’s leading cryptographers are competing to develop new encryption standards for the U.S. that would protect against both classical and quantum computing cyberattacks.
Matt Swayne, editor at the Quantum Daily who co – produced the short video with publisher and co – founder Evan Kubes, said he aims to create an advisory group of experts to discuss the topic of quantum ethics. The video is the first step, he said. “We want to raise concerns but we do not want to intimidate him,” he said.
Write to Sara Castellanos at [email protected]
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