Where Is the All-Hands-On-Deck Plan to Adopt Quantum-Safe Encryption and Protect Global Data by 2029?
Google, Microsoft, and Quantinuum have pledged fully functioning quantum computers by 2029. Quantum algorithms will break current public-key encryption that protects everything from bank accounts to e-mails to state secrets, but official plans in the U.S., EU, Canada, and U.K. target 2030 to 2031 or later for adoption of quantum-safe encryption. With criminals already harvesting data to decrypt later, where’s the all-hands-on-deck plan to secure the world’s data?
2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded for Discovery of Molecular Process in Living Organisms
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognized two scientists for discoveries that helped explain how one mirror-image form of a molecule can dominate over its opposite, addressing a fundamental question about the origins of life. Their work, dating back to the 1980s and 1990s, took decades to become part of chemistry’s established principles. As AI accelerates scientific output, the prize is a testament to the value of human time in science for sustained investigation, critical evaluation, and collective efforts that turn discoveries into core knowledge.
AI Beating Humans to Long-Sought Mathematical Proof Has Mathematicians Questioning Their Future
After artificial intelligence generated a solution for one of the world’s most difficult mathematical problems, mathematicians are questioning the future of a profession that has long dedicated its work and recognition to problem-solving. The Leiden Declaration is one response that calls for disclosure of machine use and data sources, among other measures, as mathematicians contend with a future when humans might not even understand AI-generated proofs.
The Future: Science Delivers Increasingly Precise Measurements of Time, But Does Nature Operate on a Different Clock?
In October, international authorities eliminated leap seconds, allowing global timekeeping to begin diverging from the Earth’s rotation. Meanwhile, scientists have developed record-breaking atomic clocks and the first operating nuclear clocks, opening new possibilities for scientific discovery and redefining the second itself. The shift in the way we think about and organize time highlights the growing independence of our clocks from the cycles of nature on Earth, and puts the spotlight on current approaches to ecology.
In Focus
Hacking at Machine Speed: How AI Is Changing Cybersecurity
Recent cyberattacks have exposed vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure and digital systems, while autonomous AI agents are making hacking faster, cheaper, and less dependent on human intervention. Cybersecurity researcher Dr. Joanna Santos explains how AI can both strengthen defenses and introduce new security risks. As the cyber battle of bad against good accelerates, maintaining human understanding, oversight, and control becomes an increasingly important challenge.
Fracking Time: The Difference Between Machine Time and Human Time, and Why We Should Be Concerned
Machines process data at speeds far exceeding human brain capacity, but speed doesn’t convey the meaning of causes and effects in time. This third installment in our “human fracking” series explores the differences between machine time and human time, asking what happens to our attention, memory, and independent reasoning when algorithms set the pace of our lives.
New Entanglement Methods Boost Prospect of Full-Scale Quantum Computing by 2029. Is 3 Years Enough Time to Re-Encrypt the World’s Data?
New approaches using sunlight and microwave fields for entanglement advance prospects for creating stable quantum computing circuits. They also heighten the urgency for protecting the world’s sensitive data from decryption by quantum algorithms, as major developers race to deliver fully-functioning machines by 2029.
Editorial Perspectives
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Blog
Attention Capitalism: Consumers Deserve Better Legal Protection for Data Taken by Big Tech
Capturing human attention drives massive profits for companies like Google, and Meta that don't compensate us for data they take under lengthy, often incomprehensible, and seldom-read user agreements. We suggest legal changes – including summaries of key contractual terms, recognition that payment in data is equivalent to payment in cash, and funding of independent legal advice for consumers – to add fairness and balance to our data-providing relationship with giant tech companies.
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Blog
2026: When a Free Bit of Philosophy Can be Worth More Than Trillion$ in Fleeting Tech Value
With trillions of dollars at stake in the public offerings of SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI, investors face serious risk to the future value of their shareholdings. Increasingly rapid technological developments and the historically-predictable rise of disruptive technologies pose the real potential of obsolescence and investment losses. Knowing the historical approach of a company's leadership, and the application of philosophy's cost-free processes of dialogue and thought, could yield far greater rewards in the future than the now dominant trading algorithms that drive market prices and timing could possibly predict. Caveat emptor.
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Blog
Why Understanding History is Crucial for Responsible Artificial Intelligence Development
Palantir is a controversial company developing systems for U.S. government use in mass deportations. We examine the historical perspectives of Palantir's CEO, Alex Karp, in his 2025 book that promotes the use of "hard power" to preserve a particular form of democracy, and question whether history's lessons have been considered. We suggest that tech leaders tread very cautiously on the historical record when they produce AI applications as powerful as Palantir's.
The Quantum Feedback Loop Podcast
Dr. Joanna Santos on Software Vulnerabilities and Security Testing
Dr. Catherine Knibbs on the Causes and Effects of Cybertrauma
How the Asteroid Institute Defends Earth from Asteroids with the THOR algorithm
The Quantum Record is a non-profit journal of philosophy, science, technology, and time.
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Latest Quantum Computing
Where Is the All-Hands-On-Deck Plan to Adopt Quantum-Safe Encryption and Protect Global Data by 2029?
Google, Microsoft, and Quantinuum have pledged fully functioning quantum computers by 2029. Quantum algorithms will break current public-key encryption that protects everything from bank accounts to e-mails to state secrets, but official plans in the U.S., EU, Canada, and U.K. target 2030 to 2031 or later for adoption of quantum-safe encryption. With criminals already harvesting data to decrypt later, where’s the all-hands-on-deck plan to secure the world’s data?
New Entanglement Methods Boost Prospect of Full-Scale Quantum Computing by 2029. Is 3 Years Enough Time to Re-Encrypt the World’s Data?
New approaches using sunlight and microwave fields for entanglement advance prospects for creating stable quantum computing circuits. They also heighten the urgency for protecting the world’s sensitive data from decryption by quantum algorithms, as major developers race to deliver fully-functioning machines by 2029.
Scaling Green Quantum Computing and the Search for Environmental Efficiency
According to the World Economic Forum, quantum computing could help reduce energy demands of AI and intensive computing, but its environmental advantage will depend on which quantum architectures are scaled and their operating efficiency. Research suggests a green outcome will involve more than eliminating the cost of supercooling, and a new study finds that operating near room temperature does not necessarily reduce overall energy use. Much can change, however, as developing quantum architectures mature.
Featured Science News
Why Artificial Neural Networks Fail in Processing Emotions Essential for Human Memory—and How Failure Can Lead to Blackmail
Artificial neural networks behind ChatGPT, Claude, and other popular large language models fall short in processing emotions, which are essential to human memory and motivation. The fault lines that lead machines to sycophancy, blackmail, jailbreaking, and other serious output errors are rooted in machine learning and choices made by human trainers. We look at examples of algorithmic failures and the reasons why.
Latest Philosophy of Technology
AI Beating Humans to Long-Sought Mathematical Proof Has Mathematicians Questioning Their Future
After artificial intelligence generated a solution for one of the world’s most difficult mathematical problems, mathematicians are questioning the future of a profession that has long dedicated its work and recognition to problem-solving. The Leiden Declaration is one response that calls for disclosure of machine use and data sources, among other measures, as mathematicians contend with a future when humans might not even understand AI-generated proofs.
Fracking Time: The Difference Between Machine Time and Human Time, and Why We Should Be Concerned
Machines process data at speeds far exceeding human brain capacity, but speed doesn’t convey the meaning of causes and effects in time. This third installment in our “human fracking” series explores the differences between machine time and human time, asking what happens to our attention, memory, and independent reasoning when algorithms set the pace of our lives.
The Fracking of Human Language: Are the Risks of Language-Simulators Like ChatGPT Worth the Sacrifices?
A UNESCO report warns that large language models like ChatGPT risk creating a “linguistic dictatorship” by standardizing speech and thought while amplifying stereotypes and the loss of many words. Convincing but deceptive and poor simulations of human emotions continue to damage mental health, and some propose that we stop attaching human terms like “intelligence,” “hallucination,” and “neural network” to the algorithms to make it clearer they’re not human.
Latest Technology Over Time
After Centuries of Exploring the Mysteries of the Great Pyramid Shafts, Will Robotics Help to Uncover Their Purpose?
Over 200 years have passed since French Emperor Napoleon’s night in the Great Pyramid puzzling over its purpose, and there remains no consensus but many theories on the question. The reason for the shafts in the King’s and Queen’s Chambers is particularly mystifying, and we explore many possibilities. Will robots, which have penetrated the shafts most deeply, help to unlock the secret that’s thousands of years old?
Decoding Ancient Technology Using Modern Technology
From the discovery of a 500-year-old ocean-going canoe in the Chatham Islands to the AI-powered decoding of ancient Roman scrolls buried in volcanic ash, modern technologies—like radiocarbon dating, CT scanning, and AI—are transforming the study of ancient artefacts. Mysteries endure, however, like the undeciphered Voynich Manuscript, and continue to challenge our understanding of the past.
The Fascinating History of the Computer, from ENIAC, Vacuum Tubes and Transistors, to Microchips
We trace computing history from ENIAC, the first computer in 1947, from vacuum tubes to transistors, to the development of microchips that put far greater computing power in our our phones than the giant ENIAC had. With the world at the brink of a quantum computing revolution, what lessons can we draw from our computing history to shape the best possible future with our next technological leap ?
Latest Science News
2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded for Discovery of Molecular Process in Living Organisms
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognized two scientists for discoveries that helped explain how one mirror-image form of a molecule can dominate over its opposite, addressing a fundamental question about the origins of life. Their work, dating back to the 1980s and 1990s, took decades to become part of chemistry’s established principles. As AI accelerates scientific output, the prize is a testament to the value of human time in science for sustained investigation, critical evaluation, and collective efforts that turn discoveries into core knowledge.
The Future: Science Delivers Increasingly Precise Measurements of Time, But Does Nature Operate on a Different Clock?
In October, international authorities eliminated leap seconds, allowing global timekeeping to begin diverging from the Earth’s rotation. Meanwhile, scientists have developed record-breaking atomic clocks and the first operating nuclear clocks, opening new possibilities for scientific discovery and redefining the second itself. The shift in the way we think about and organize time highlights the growing independence of our clocks from the cycles of nature on Earth, and puts the spotlight on current approaches to ecology.
Hacking at Machine Speed: How AI Is Changing Cybersecurity
Recent cyberattacks have exposed vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure and digital systems, while autonomous AI agents are making hacking faster, cheaper, and less dependent on human intervention. Cybersecurity researcher Dr. Joanna Santos explains how AI can both strengthen defenses and introduce new security risks. As the cyber battle of bad against good accelerates, maintaining human understanding, oversight, and control becomes an increasingly important challenge.