Quantum Hocus Pocus

Abstract

The claims made in a manifesto resulting in the European quantum technologies flagship initiative in quantum technology and similar enterprises are taken as starting point to critically review some potential quantum resources, such as coherent superposition and entanglement, and their potential usefulness for parallelism and communication. Claims of absolute, irreducible (non-epistemic) randomness are argued to be metaphysical. Cryptanalytic man-in-the-middle attacks on quantum cryptography are well known to be feasible, but hardly mentioned. If all of this is taken into account, a more sober perspective on quantum capacities emerges, but one that may be ethically more justified than the "hype and magic" that drives many current initiatives.

5 pages, polished, some references added

References in corpus (4)

• Quantum algorithms: an overview
• Staging quantum cryptography with chocolate balls
• Can quantum theory and special relativity peacefully coexist?
• Orthogonal vector computations

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Is Einsteinian no-signalling violated in Bell Tests?
• Contextuality-by-Default description of Bell tests: Contextuality as the rule not as an exception
• What makes quantum clicks special?
• Defining Quantum Games
• Concepts for a deuterium-deuterium fusion reactor
• Quantum music, quantum arts and their perception
• Quantum randomness is chimeric
• Roots and (re)sources of value (in)definiteness versus contextuality. A contribution to the Pitowsky Volume in memory of Itamar Pitowsky (1950--2010)
• My discussions of quantum foundations with John Stewart Bell
• Linear superposition as a core theorem of quantum empiricism
• Vector computation
• Quantum advantage by relational queries about physically realizable equivalence classes