An important character in my “Trogs” novel (to be published Sept. 8) works for the FBI Fugitive Detection and Recovery Directorate. He uses the tools of 2075-era forensics backed by a dedicated Quantum computer to chase “ghosts,” or individuals evading arrest who are sophisticated enough to cover their digital trails. As happens all too often, the seeds of what I can conceive in my imagination for the 50-year future are being planted now.
According to QuantumAnalysis’ X post today, that the FBI has created a Quantum Information Science and Technology Counterintelligence Protection Team. This unit isn’t out chasing crooks and political enemies, like the ghost hunters in “Trogs” do. Their aims seem laudable. As QuantumAnalysis explains:
American universities and companies are where most of the world’s quantum breakthroughs happen, in open labs, published papers, and grad programs full of international students. That openness is why the US leads. It’s also the softest target in national security.
And the value of what’s in those labs keeps rising, error correction methods, qubit designs, control software, the exact IP that the government just paid $2 billion in equity stakes to accelerate. Washington is now funding the research and guarding it. …
It’s not the scenario I describe in “Trogs,” but it is a first step in that direction.
The power of Quantum computing is so powerful that every intelligence agency in the United States… and every other country… will want to harness it. We can expect the following to occur, like night following day:
- Step one: The FBI forms a unit to protect Quantum IP assets.
- Step two: The FBI (like the NSA and every intelligence and law-enforcement agency) wants its own Quantum computer to keep up with adversaries who all want their own Quantum computers.
- Step three: The FBI extends the use of quantum computing from domestic counter-intelligence to tracking down bad guys like terrorists, drug runners, sex traffickers, and anyone else on the “not approved” list.
- Step four: Guardrails will be established to prevent abuse of Quantum computing.
- Step five: Inevitably, the guardrails will be ignored or dismantled.
I’m a fan of Singularity-era technologies for all the good they can do. But we have to recognize — and guard against — the evil that can result. Bacon’s law of technology: Every new technology can be used for good… or ill. Bacon’s corollary: The best intentions oft go astray.