Who Is Pulling the Strings? Human Agency and Manipulation of Opinions on the Road to the Quantum Era
Predictive models of public opinion, when employed for legitimate purposes, help policymakers, researchers, and the public to understand societal needs. While electoral polls can provide insights to guide campaigns and policymakers with transparency, manipulation using AI has been, and can be, used to advance hidden agendas. Given quantum computing’s potential for calculating probabilities in vast datasets exponentially quicker, could the developing technology either improve or undermine the integrity of democratic processes?
Quantum Computing in Finance: Will Humans or Machines Have the Final Say in Setting Future Values?
Major financial players like Goldman Sachs are investing heavily in quantum computing to reduce risk in single trades, but could widespread adoption of quantum algorithms for calculating derivatives values cause “herding” and destabilize a market with over $700 trillion at risk? When algorithmic trading already dominates the markets, we explore the pros and cons of quantum computing’s speed in Monte Carlo simulations that drive current values, and the potential outcomes when unexpected events like the 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers rock the derivatives markets with years-long consequences.
How Journalists and Digital Watchdog Citizen Lab Protect the Public from Cyberthreats
Revelations that Pegasus spyware was being used by some governments to target dissidents and human rights activists triggered a global collaboration of journalists to investigate and expose the powerful technology and its risks to the public. Efforts like these are supported by the expertise of The Citizen Lab, a digital watchdog at the University of Toronto whose research has uncovered many other cyber abuses for over two decades.
What’s on the Horizon for Error-Free Quantum Computing, Expected Within Five Years?
In the race to eliminate errors in quantum computer circuits, Quantinuum’s September announcement of plans to develop a fully fault-tolerant machine by 2029 raises the bar for competitors. With rapid progress in error reduction being made, we survey the latest in differing quantum computer designs and some of the first applications for a fully functioning machine, possibly even improving controversial large language model technology.
Editorial Perspectives
Blog
A Five-Year-Old’s Challenge to Free-Speech Absolutism
By accepting no limits to what they say, free-speech absolutists who broadcast their views with the power and global reach of technology fail to consider the effects of their words on children. Without life experience, kids are defenceless against lies and vulgarities spread far and wide by powerful or popular people. Every adult's responsibility is to protect the children, and it's time that children be brought into the free speech debate.
Blog
Trust is Fragile: Google’s Antitrust Loss and the Global Windows Failure in July are Warnings to AI Investors About the Future Value of Trust
The recent antitrust case lost by Google and another antitrust action now being heard, together with the global failure of Microsoft Windows from faulty code in third-party software highlight our reliance on AI. They also underscore the extent that AI's future value, currently trading for trillions of dollars daily, depends on the trust of its human users.
Blog
The Real and Present Dangers of Reducing Four-Dimensional Living to Two-Dimensional Screen Projections
Much is lost in the reduction of life as we live it, in four dimensions, to a two-dimensional screen. Influence is easily projected from social media platforms onto the length and width of a screen where depth and time are easily manipulated, and the polarization of opinions is a global threat of stereotyping. We owe it to the world's children to preserve real four-dimensional life, which will in the long run be good for corporate profits too.
In Focus
Is Data-Intensive AI Facing a Memory Limit? New Approaches Might Provide Solutions
Generative AI, like OpenAI’s GPT-4, requires massive computing memory and processing speed to handle more than a trillion parameters. Data-intensive and memory-hungry AI applications are increasingly reliant on the chips and processing units of one market-dominating company, Nvidia. When the efficiency of memory use in functions that require large amounts of data is being questioned, and with their demands for electricity skyrocketing, we look at some promising alternatives for memory storage.
Watt Matters: Addressing the Energy Problem in Data Centers
Revival of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant by Microsoft reflects the urgent energy demands of modern AI and cloud computing data centers. As their energy consumption continues to surge, it is critical for tech companies, national governments, and international organizations to collaborate on clean energy investments. Initiatives like the global AI summit aim to enhance sustainable energy practices, addressing the environmental damage associated with rising electrical production.
Editing Our Human Selves: Will Quantum Computing’s Potential Increase the Risks or the Benefits?
Computing power is combining with gene editing technology to give us unprecedented control over genetics. The technologies are relatively new, making the long-term consequences of editing the human genome difficult to predict. We look at how both classical and quantum computing are being used to amplify our ability to manipulate genetics, and given their future potential ask whether standards against human experimentation will be sufficient to prevent a repeat of the serious legal and ethical violations that put a scientist in prison in 2019.
Podcasts and Webcasts
Dr. Adio Dinika on The Human Data Workers Who Make AI Possible
Dr. Federico Carollo on the Intriguing Present and Future Potential of Time Crystals
Twesh Upadhyaya on the Frontiers of Quantum Thermodynamics
The Quantum Record is a non-profit journal of philosophy, science, technology, and time.
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Latest Quantum Computing
What’s on the Horizon for Error-Free Quantum Computing, Expected Within Five Years?
In the race to eliminate errors in quantum computer circuits, Quantinuum’s September announcement of plans to develop a fully fault-tolerant machine by 2029 raises the bar for competitors. With rapid progress in error reduction being made, we survey the latest in differing quantum computer designs and some of the first applications for a fully functioning machine, possibly even improving controversial large language model technology.
Deep Underground Lab Studies Effects of Cosmic Rays on Quantum Bits
Located 2 kilometres below ground near Sudbury, Canada, SNOLAB is the world’s deepest underground facility studying interactions of cosmic rays and radiation with bits of quantum information (qubits). In the “clean” lab shielding experiments from cosmic radiation experienced on the Earth’s surface, researchers aim to reduce errors in qubit connections and advance more reliable and efficient quantum computers.
Discoveries in Quantum Teleportation Could Lead to Fault-Tolerant Computers and, Possibly, Wormholes
Quantum teleportation is process that transfers quantum information between locations without moving the quantum bits. A novel method could achieve teleportation without the environmental noise that causes loss of connections in today’s quantum computers, by leveraging the properties of the noise itself. This could lead to fully functional quantum computers, and as a leading scientist explains, possibly the discovery of traversable wormholes.
Featured Science News
The Big Ring: Is the Newly Found Cosmic Megastructure the End for the Cosmological Principle?
The discovery of a colossal ring-shaped structure in space, known as the Big Ring, challenges the cosmological principle, a foundational concept in astrophysics. This finding reinforces questions about the completeness of current cosmological models and hints at the need for a potential overhaul of our understanding of the evolution of the universe.
Latest Philosophy of Technology
Who Is Pulling the Strings? Human Agency and Manipulation of Opinions on the Road to the Quantum Era
Predictive models of public opinion, when employed for legitimate purposes, help policymakers, researchers, and the public to understand societal needs. While electoral polls can provide insights to guide campaigns and policymakers with transparency, manipulation using AI has been, and can be, used to advance hidden agendas. Given quantum computing’s potential for calculating probabilities in vast datasets exponentially quicker, could the developing technology either improve or undermine the integrity of democratic processes?
Quantum Computing in Finance: Will Humans or Machines Have the Final Say in Setting Future Values?
Major financial players like Goldman Sachs are investing heavily in quantum computing to reduce risk in single trades, but could widespread adoption of quantum algorithms for calculating derivatives values cause “herding” and destabilize a market with over $700 trillion at risk? When algorithmic trading already dominates the markets, we explore the pros and cons of quantum computing’s speed in Monte Carlo simulations that drive current values, and the potential outcomes when unexpected events like the 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers rock the derivatives markets with years-long consequences.
Editing Our Human Selves: Will Quantum Computing’s Potential Increase the Risks or the Benefits?
Computing power is combining with gene editing technology to give us unprecedented control over genetics. The technologies are relatively new, making the long-term consequences of editing the human genome difficult to predict. We look at how both classical and quantum computing are being used to amplify our ability to manipulate genetics, and given their future potential ask whether standards against human experimentation will be sufficient to prevent a repeat of the serious legal and ethical violations that put a scientist in prison in 2019.
Latest Technology Over Time
Ancient Roman Concrete: A Technology Ahead of Its Time
The Colosseum and Pantheon stand witness to the knowledge and skill behind ancient Roman concrete-making technology. We look at the history of concrete from then to now, and take you into the Pantheon to explore the marvels that ancient Romans accomplished with concrete.
The Mystery of the Ancient Roman Dodecahedrons
What was the purpose of these curious dodecahedrons, discovered in the northern parts of the ancient Roman Empire? Why does no record exist to explain their use and manufacture? We review the intriguing possibilities, but more detective work is needed to uncover the truth of this ancient technology.
The Genius of Alan Turing, and the Technology that Cracked the Nazi Enigma Code
Alan Turing’s skills in mathematics and computer science helped build the “Bombe,” the computing machine that cracked the Nazi Enigma code. The technology was instrumental in the Allied victory over Hitler.
Latest Science News
How Journalists and Digital Watchdog Citizen Lab Protect the Public from Cyberthreats
Revelations that Pegasus spyware was being used by some governments to target dissidents and human rights activists triggered a global collaboration of journalists to investigate and expose the powerful technology and its risks to the public. Efforts like these are supported by the expertise of The Citizen Lab, a digital watchdog at the University of Toronto whose research has uncovered many other cyber abuses for over two decades.
Is Data-Intensive AI Facing a Memory Limit? New Approaches Might Provide Solutions
Generative AI, like OpenAI’s GPT-4, requires massive computing memory and processing speed to handle more than a trillion parameters. Data-intensive and memory-hungry AI applications are increasingly reliant on the chips and processing units of one market-dominating company, Nvidia. When the efficiency of memory use in functions that require large amounts of data is being questioned, and with their demands for electricity skyrocketing, we look at some promising alternatives for memory storage.
Watt Matters: Addressing the Energy Problem in Data Centers
Revival of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant by Microsoft reflects the urgent energy demands of modern AI and cloud computing data centers. As their energy consumption continues to surge, it is critical for tech companies, national governments, and international organizations to collaborate on clean energy investments. Initiatives like the global AI summit aim to enhance sustainable energy practices, addressing the environmental damage associated with rising electrical production.