Abstract
This paper considers the potential impact that the nascent technology of quantum computing may have on society. It focuses on three areas: cryptography, optimization, and simulation of quantum systems. We will also discuss some ethical aspects of these developments, and ways to mitigate the risks.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Notes
The first digital computers were built a few years later. Of course, there was already much earlier (informal) work, like Pascal and Leibniz’s 17th century work on machines for arithmetic calculations, Babbage and Lovelace’s 19th century work on the Analytical Engine, and even the still-mysterious 1st century BC Antikythera mechanism.
In the theory of computing, a computational problem is considered “easy” if it can be computed by an algorithm whose running time grows at most polynomially with the input length (i.e., a running time like n 2 or n 3 for inputs of n bits). Otherwise the problem is considered “hard”; often such hard problems take a running time that grows exponentially or nearly-exponentially with the input length n. The latter type of problem is not solvable in reasonable amounts of time for large input length.
Under several idealizing assumptions that are approximately true in practice: quantum mechanics is the correct description of Nature; Alice’s lab and Bob’s lab is secure from the eavesdropper; their communication channel is “authenticated” (they know they’re talking to one another); and their apparatuses have low and benign errors.
If neither post-quantum nor quantum cryptography works, then as a last resort one can always put one’s secrets on a high-quality memory device detached from the internet and put this (or even a print-out) in a physical safe. However, this has many obvious disadvantages over computer-based cryptography.
In contrast, running Shor’s algorithm to break current cryptography would require thousands or even millions of qubits, depending on how error-free we can make these qubits and the operations upon them.
These ethical issues are not really specific to quantum computers—they would apply also in case of much faster classical computers and/or much better classical algorithms. However, we expect the improvements in classical hardware to slow down (the end of Moore’s law is near), and we do not expect much faster classical algorithms for problems like factoring large numbers or simulating quantum systems.
References
Aaronson, S. (2008). The limits of quantum computers. Scientific American, 298, 62–69.
Bennett, C. H., Brassard, G. (1984). Quantum cryptography: Public key distribution and coin tossing, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computers, Systems and Signal Processing, pp. 175–179
Deutsch, D. (1998). The fabric of reality: The science of parallel universes–and its implications. London: Penguin Books.
Dürr, C., Høyer, P. (1996). A quantum algorithm for finding the minimum. quant-ph/9607014, 18
Dürr, C., Heiligman, M., Høyer, P., & Mhalla, M. (2006). Quantum query complexity of some graph problems. SIAM Journal on Computing, 35(6), 1310–1328. (Earlier version in ICALP’04. quant-ph/0401091).
Drucker, A., de Wolf, R. (2011). Quantum proofs for classical theorems. Theory of Computing. ToC Library, Graduate Surveys 2. arXiv:0910.3376
Feynman, R. (1982). Simulating physics with computers. International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 21(6/7), 467–488.
Grover, L.K. (1996). A fast quantum mechanical algorithm for database search, Proceedings of 28th ACM STOC, pp. 212–219, quant-ph/9605043
Harlow, D., & Hayden, P. (2013). Quantum computation vs. firewalls. Journal of High Energy Physics, 85, 2013. arXiv:1301.4504.
Harrow, A., Hassidim, A., & Lloyd, S. (2009). Quantum algorithm for solving linear systems of equations. Physical Review Letters, 103(15), 150502. arXiv:0811.3171.
IBM. Quantum experience, 2016. http://research.ibm.com/ibm-q/.
Montanaro, A. (2016). Quantum algorithms: An overview. npj Quantum Information, (15023). arXiv:1511.04206
Poulin, D., Hastings, M. B., Wecker, D., Wiebe, N., Doherty, A. C., & Troyer, M. (2015). The Trotter step size required for accurate quantum simulation of quantum chemistry. Quantum Information and Computation, 15(5 & 6), 361i–384. arXiv:1406.4920.
Reiher, M., Wiebe, N., Svore, K., Wecker, D., & Troyer, M. (2017). Elucidating reaction mechanisms on quantum computers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(29), 7555–7560. arXiv:1605.03590.
Shor, P. W. (1997). Polynomial-time algorithms for prime factorization and discrete logarithms on a quantum computer. SIAM Journal on Computing, 26(5), 1484–1509. (Earlier version in FOCS’94. quant-ph/9508027).
Suetonius (2007) The Twelve Caesars. Penguin Classics. Translated by Robert Graves
Turing, A. M. (1936). On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungproblem. Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Vol. 42, pp. 230–265. Correction, ibidem (Vol. 43), pp. 544–546
Whitfield, J. D., Love, P. J., & Aspuru-Guzik, A. (2013). Computational complexity in electronic structure. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 15(2), 397–411. arXiv:1208.3334.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Joran van Apeldoorn, Harry Buhrman, and the anonymous referees for helpful comments that improved the presentation of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
de Wolf, R. The potential impact of quantum computers on society. Ethics Inf Technol 19, 271–276 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-017-9439-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-017-9439-z