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In contrast to conventional computers, quantum computers are (or will be) built via the principles of quantum mechanics. Specifically, where information is stored in bits in a computer today, information in quantum computers will be stored in quantum bits, or qubits. A bit can be either a 0 or a 1, a binary system.Think of a light bulb that is either on or off, or a coin that is either heads or tails. In the mechanics of computing, a bit usually refers to an electrical signal that iseither on or off.

Like a bit, a qubit can be either 0 or 1, but it can also exist as limitless possibilities between those two states. Qubitsbuilt from subatomic particlesmight be created via the state of superposition between two electrons, for instance. Thus, a qubit is not just in a state of 0 or 1, it could be 0 and 1 at the same time, or any other combination between the states.

According to an article from Caltech, When an electron is in superposition, its different states can be thought of as separate outcomes, each with a particular probability of being observed. An electron might be said to be in a superposition of two different velocities or in two places at once.

Developing qubits offers the potential to store information orders of magnitude greater than what is possible with classical computation. The expectation is that quantum computers will thereby be able to perform operations beyond even todays supercomputers.

The usual suspects are at work developing quantum computers: IBM, Microsoft, Google Amazon, as well as some names youve not heard of. Importantly, theres a budding competition between Chinese and Western developers, part of the larger phenomenon of strategic capitalism, where national governments nurture and protect critical industriesrather than regulate them or, conversely, allow them to roam the globe freelyfrom their geostrategic rivals.

Kevin Klyman reports in Foreign Policy that the Biden administration is not waiting for the full development of the technology to institute export controls.

After controls on semiconductors, the Commerce Department is moving on to the next emerging technology it worries China could weaponize: quantum computing, Klyman says. Export controls on quantum computing hardware, error correction software, and the provision of cloud services to Chinese entities are poised to become the next front in the U.S.-China tech war.

Quantum computers will be able to tackle problems beyond the abilities of todays supercomputers. They will be able to evade most attempts at encryption, and so there will emerge a host of security questions that have yet to be answered. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will no doubt be accelerated. A few years ago, I wrote a book that discussed the limits of AI based largely on the notion that the semiconductors of classical computers would reach a point where they could not be reduced in size any further, that there is only so much processing power that can be confined to such a small space, and that the intelligence of a computer would reach its peak. Quantum Computing offers the possibility of blasting through those physical limits. AI + quantum computing could very well lead us to realize that theoretical possibility of an artificial general intelligence or indeed a super intelligence far beyond that of human intelligence.

The modeling and simulation of complex systems could also be possible with quantum computing. Everything from chemical systems to financial portfolios might be modeled. I have long argued that complex systems, especially, are exquisitely and intrinsically unpredictable, because of their sensitivity to initial conditions, their elaborate feedback loops, and other features that make prediction of the future behaviors of such systems all but impossible. It is more than plausible that quantum computers will permit more confident predictions of the behaviors of such systems.

If that proves the case, there are potential implications for the modeling and prediction of social systems, not just physical systems. If we gain the ability to model and predict, would we also gain the ability to control such systems, including the control over social systems?

In the early 1970s, Chile elected a socialist president, Salvador Allende, who promised to transfer property ownership from the wealthy to the state.In order to manage this socialist economy, Allende turned to Project Cybersyn. This was to be a central command room (opsroom) where data and information from the workings of the economy were to be ingested, analyzed and made available to the decision makers and managers.The system was to be run off a mainframe computer.

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union similarly worked on the idea that cybernetics could be employed to manage the economy, to unleash a consumers paradise to rival the one the West had developed. Allende was deposed in a coup, and so Project Cybersyn never really got off the ground. By the 1980s, free market ideology had taken hold of the Western imagination and the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s seemingly ended any idea that the economy could be managed, even by a cybernetic system.

If quantum computers have the capacity to model, simulate, and potentially control complex systems, might we see a nation attempt something like Project Cybersyn again? Further, we might imagine an authoritarian seeking to extend cybernetic management beyond the economy to include control over society, culture and politics as well.Might quantum computing help to facilitate quantum authoritarianism?

After the PC revolution, we have become accustomed to thinking that all new technologies will eventually be democratized, made abundant and inexpensive and within access to all consumers. A very likely scenario is that at some point quantum computers will power all sorts of consumer-grade tools and applications, and that we will all carry a quantum computer in our pockets.

But it is also possible that quantum computing will remain an exclusive technology. Think of all the technologies we have developed that have not been made consumer-grade. One thinks of MRI scanners or F-16s or nuclear power plants. It is possible that relatively few quantum computers will be produced, and those that are made will be used only by specialists.Quantum computers might similarly remain in the hands of a few, an important infrastructure technology, perhaps, but one that will not be in the hands of consumers.Imagine Amazon Quantum Services.

Even if we dont end up having quantum computers in our homes, it is possible that the idea of the quantum will spread such that it will alter our societal worldview. Think of howafter the rise of the Internetthe concept of the network has reshaped how we see and understand reality. To take but one example, Anne-Marie Slaughter argues that diplomats and international relations scholars have shifted from using game theory to network theory to understand the world.

The idea of the network as a metaphor has had a powerful effect on our worldview. Might quantum become the new cultural metaphor that implicitly shapes our thoughts and actions?The idea of being both-and or having alternate states existing simultaneously might find its way into our everyday language, changing how we view everything from social relations to the operations of the economy to how we teach schoolchildren to the way ideas go viral.

The metaphor of quantum superposition could very well influence the work of artists, the writing of poets and novelists, the actions of corporate boards, and the decisions of policymakerssimultaneously.

David Staley is an associate professor of history and design at The Ohio State University, and is president ofColumbus Futurists.He is the author of Visionary Histories, a collection of his Next futures columns.He was named Best Freelance Writer in 2022 by the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists for his Next column.

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NEXT: Quantum Computing and the Quantum Worldview - Columbus Underground