DPhil the Future: Making quantum accessible
Posted: 17th May 2024
DPhil student Lia Yeh talks about her experience attending a Responsible Quantum Technologies workshop and explains why it is important quantum is made accessible to all.
On 16-18 April, I attended a 3-day workshop on Responsible Quantum Technologies at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis at the German university, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
I was excited about this because it's always challenging to define responsibility in any new field. Some countries even require that every technology course includes a part on ethics and responsibility.. In my undergraduate degree, I took a course required for all computer science degrees, but it didn't specifically cover quantum computer science ethics. Before this, I had had to think about ethical responsibilities during my time as a PhD student, part-time research engineer, educator, and in volunteering capacities. In particular, I had to consider ethical responsibilities in my research in quantum education science at the high school level. This is because I have the responsibility to protect the rights of the students, especially whilst handling their data.
This workshop was the first time I realised how broad responsibility is in quantum technology. I saw how interdisciplinary this topic is and how it intersects with ethics, science and technology studies (which is social studies applied to science and technology), technology assessment (how science and technology impact society), general interest in quantum, education, outreach, etc. It was eye-opening to engage in discussions aiming to ask relevant questions and formally recognise the risks and how to address them.
Reflecting on the workshop, my first takeaway is that there is a phrase I think should become common vocabulary for every researcher in quantum technology. The phrase is ‘dual use’. Dual use is defined as when a technology that is designed to be used for one purpose can be used for malicious purposes. This affects the governance of these technologies, such as how they're allowed to be exported, who you are allowed to collaborate on research with, and who is eligible for opportunities. I wish there were more awareness of such terms among quantum scientists, who can then recognise, raise, and address risks in responsible quantum technologies as they occur.
There was a commotion at one point during the workshop where a presenter speaking on behalf of the perspective of quantum physicists posed the question ‘Who is to come up with the solutions to these ethical problems, such as dual use?’ They immediately answered their own question with ‘Well, definitely not us (the physicists)!’
These words incited an immediate reaction from members of the audience, pointing out that it would be unfair and irresponsible for the very people creating these technologies to distance themselves from any ethical repercussions, leaving it up to the social scientists and policymakers they can't be bothered to explain the science to. DPhil student Lia Yeh
My second takeaway came from the panel I was on, assessing quantum technologies in a deglobalising world. This panel is also known as the youth panel (relatively across the workshop participants). Globalisation is an overall trend where societies and economies become increasingly interconnected between countries and communities around the world. In contrast, deglobalisation is the trend where countries and economies aim to become more independent and separate. Quantum technologies reflected both globalisation and deglobalisation, but in recent years, more so deglobalisation, more than just for export controls on hardware. This has manifested in changes as to who can access the technology on the cloud and who can't.
With de-globalisation, a severe risk is that wealthier countries will further benefit from quantum technologies, increasing global economic inequality. An example is quantum technologies displacing workers. This is especially true in quantum technologies where the hardware and technical expertise required, pose a high barrier to entry in terms of investment and infrastructure. Even when there is learning for people from countries with fewer opportunities, on top of the brain drain, there is the added risk of these being more as advertisements rather than as a sustainable effort to create opportunities. Another youth panellist shared the distress brought about by the unpredictability of geopolitical tensions: How can you choose to pursue a career in quantum if your access to quantum computations can be blocked without explanation, or have to constantly fret about visa and travel restrictions?
It is crucial to enable open-source software and hardware by making more accessible educational resources, hands-on experiences such as hackathons, and mentorship and peer-to-peer learning opportunities. Open source can build a more thriving and inclusive community and accelerate innovation. Instead of quantum companies having their software and hardware stacked as a silo independently of each other, open source allows for these different parts to be interoperable, encouraging innovation, transparency, and a better understanding of how the technology works. DPhil student Lia Yeh
My third takeaway is the importance of making opportunities available for young people, as this is the generation that will become future leaders in the field. One panellist of another panel suggested we should focus on reskilling workers from fields adjacent to quantum technologies, as they will otherwise be displaced, rather than invest in young people. I completely disagreed. One frustration shared by all of us “youth” panellists was that young people are not “future workforce”, a term ubiquitous in policymaking for quantum technologies. Various grassroots communities in quantum (most of which are focused on education), play a crucial role in providing informal, friendly avenues via which to enter the field.
The main reason I disagree that we should focus investment on reskilling rather than young people, is because it is antithetical to equality, diversity, and inclusion efforts. This feeling comes from personal experiences teaching programming to middle school students. During my three summers at a summer camp, teaching a new class of 20-24 students, only 1-4 of them were girls each week.
This made me hyperaware that women were minorities in computer science before I had even decided that I wanted to pursue computer science after high school. DPhil student Lia Yeh
This disparity is so wide at the middle school age and worsens at higher levels. This is called the leaky pipeline problem. Therefore, reskilling workers from areas adjacent to quantum technologies will only propagate this disparity, as adjacent areas include computer science, physics, and mathematics, all of which are among the most male-dominated fields.
Nevertheless, teaching programming at the summer camp made me realize that I wanted to pursue computer science in college and whatever came after. That was just the beginning of my search for what can make learning an intimidating subject approachable, understandable, and fun. I have been really enjoying teaching quantum to high school students, first for the Qubit by Qubit course from The Coding School nonprofit, and now for the Quantum in Pictures course, which is a collaboration between the University of Oxford, Quantinuum, and IBM Quantum.
At the "New Ways to Think and Teach Quantum" session of the workshop, I gave a talk on our education science research on the latter. This Quantum in Pictures course is the first time that pictures have been used to teach quantum at the high school level, where the pictures contain the maths. Most people imagine quantum as a difficult and intimidating topic, and even people familiar with quantum think of it as being impossible to understand without having first learned college-level mathematical prerequisites such as matrix multiplication, tensor product, trigonometry, and complex numbers. Whereas traditional quantum theory juxtaposes the process (ex. circuits, protocols, etc.) and the maths (ex. matrices, bra-ket notation, etc.), the pictures capture both the process and the math in a unified representation. Not only did the students seem to have fun, but what they learnt was far more advanced than I imagined. At the end of the course, they were tested with a post-graduate level exam, consisting entirely of previous exam questions for University of Oxford post-graduate quantum courses. Graded according to University of Oxford standards and accounting for a (very high) student retention rate, 82% passed, of which 48% got distinctions.
I look forward to when the post-study analysis paper will be out; the pre-study proposal paper was published at the 3rd Quantum Science and Engineering Education Conference and is available on arXiv. I want quantum science to be a subject anyone can learn and have the courage to pursue in many ways and from many different backgrounds, no matter your age, geographical location, socioeconomic background, or prior exposure to the sciences.
References for Quantum Picturalism: