Guest Post By Arthur Herman
For the last decade I have watched the unfolding of high-tech trends from my perch in the nation’s capital in Washington DC, at the Hudson Institute and the Quantum Alliance Initiative.
What I see are policymakers and the public finally coming to terms with the fact that artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) will either make or break the American future.
The outcome ultimately depends on whether AI/ML is used 1) along the lines of the current craze regarding generative AI, i.e. as a platform for entertainment and enhancing white collar professions and obsessions—while at the same time becoming an object of fear and loathing requiring constant government regulation and oversight.
Or 2) whether AI/ML becomes a springboard for real productive economic growth, triggering a manufacturing and industrial renaissance for America. How AI/ML eventually joins up with quantum technology, will probably determine the difference.
This is because quantum information science brings a unique skill set that expands the range and depth of AI/ML. Quantum computing brings powerful advances in combinatorial optimizing, i.e. finding the most efficient of resources and supply chain allocation. Quantum computing is already showing its skill in modeling the behavior of complex systems like molecular simulations. Its ability to enhance ML tasks including matrix diagonalization and pattern matching with even sharper precision, will all help with sifting out the best and quickest solution from a myriad of data and possibilities.
Quantum’s role in generative AI will be fairly marginal—one reason few people talk about it now. On the other hand, when it comes to the productive, even industrial side of AI, i.e. when they both join up with robotics and additive manufacturing and making things; and managing and securing supply chains and cyber technology; the combination of AI and quantum will be almost without limits.
Some of the results will be scary, as when hybrid quantum/AI platforms factorize the large prime numbers that underlie today’s public encryption systems, and the “cryptographically relevant quantum computing” everyone worries about, becomes a reality far faster than the experts ever predicted.
Others will be life-saving and life-enhancing, as with the development of new drugs and biotech research methodologies, including advances in brain-computer interface (BCI).
The intersection of quantum and AI will enable military drones to pinpoint not just one but a series of targets; and together with quantum sensing scan the skies and seas for stealth threats including massive hypersonic strikes.
Together quantum and AI will enable industrial robots to handle toxic or hazardous tasks and materials without missing a beat or spilling a drop.
In space, quantum and AI will seamlessly direct satellite traffic in an increasingly crowded Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and speed the development of new power sources like Helium 3 which will open up space travel deep into the solar system.
Speaking of power, the quantum/AI combination will revolutionize the power grid, making it more productive but also more secure, while advances in areas like nuclear fusion will become commonplace.
In short, what AI can do, AI/quantum will do better. Once the generative AI revolution we are currently undergoing normalizes itself, the Quantum/AI revolution will mean an even greater, more productive future—but only if we begin to explore its boundaries now.
Arthur Herman is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of its Quantum Alliance Initiative.
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