questions to understand what is quantum physics and its impact on our lives

This is what José Ignacio Latorre, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Barcelona, ​​director of the Pedro Pascual Benasque Science Center and one of the most renowned Spanish physicists in the field of physics quantum.

He has worked for the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the Niels Bohr Institute, and has received several awards for his work.

We spoke with him at the Hay Festival of Cartagena, where he participates.

I acknowledge my ignorance: what about quantum physics?

I will try to explain it in a very synthetic way.

When we come to the world of the smallest, to the world of the microscope, the laws that govern this world are not the same as those we see day by day, they are laws more subtle, more particular.

But the man, very little by little, during the twentieth century and the twenty-first century has managed to understand them and we are now about to start exploiting them, to take advantage of them.

"It's only a matter of time before artificial intelligence surpbades human intelligence," Jose Ignacio Latorre.

In the same way as the laws of the great world, the laws of clbadical physics, we understand them from Newton and with them we build bridges, we ship when necessary and we create machines that help us, now the humans have attained control of matter at the atomic level.

We are still in the childhood of quantum physics, we are now beginning to understand it thoroughly.

During the twentieth century, we have made practical applications and in the twenty-first century we are doing what we call the "second quantum revolution".

What practical applications of quantum physics have been made in the twentieth century?

Well, thanks to quantum mechanics, we have all our communications, lasers, optical fibers …

We have in medicine the magnetic nuclear resonance that allows us to see an image of the inside of the human body.

In addition, the entire GPS system relies on atomic clocks in orbit on satellites that send a signal with impressive accuracy, which allows us to know where we are on Earth.

For their part, computers use what is called solid state physics, that is, when there are many atoms, what happens to the electrons, that is, Is that they move in conduction layers, that is also quantum mechanics.

So, all computer science, all chips, are based on quantum principles.

And to this is added the second revolution of quantum physics …

The European Union, not me, has established four major pillars of progress in this regard.

One is quantum computing: making computers that work directly with quantum laws.

The second is quantum communication: establishing cryptography and secure quantum communication.

The third is quantum simulation, which allows us to study materials, molecules …

And the fourth are quantum sensors, which will allow us to measure with great precision, motion sensors controlling for example the vibrations of an airplane wing to incredibly small magnetic field measurements.

And in medicine, do you also expect progress?

Of course quantum computing will allow us to calculate much more efficiently and effectively, and that is the jump we need for drug design.

Today, we find drugs by trial and error. We test the active ingredients and see if they work or not.

"We, humans, do not design drugs, we find them, like penicillin, if we had a much more powerful computing capacity, we could design drugs," Jose Ignacio Latorre.

But human beings do not conceive these active principles, we find them. We found penicillin, we did not conceive it.

But if we had a much more powerful computing capacity, we could design drugs.

Chemistry, biochemistry and their applications are therefore areas in which quantum computing will have a more powerful impact.

Some colleagues have said that quantum computers will be so powerful that, by simply badyzing a person's photos on social networks, she can determine whether she is suffering from an illness or not …

We can do it nowadays with deep neural networks. Everything about image recognition has leapt forward over the last decade through deep learning of neural networks.

It does not take a quantum computer for that.

Image recognition requires computational power, but not brute force, or that of a quantum computer.

And that also requires better algorithms, and when we have achieved them, it works.

The quantum computer solves even more complicated problems than that, but we still do not have it.

We have some prototypes, nothing more. But as they develop, we can tackle more serious problems.

The artificial intelligence will grow enormously in the coming years. Can it reach and even surpbad human intelligence?

It is an important and profound debate.

The intelligence you refer to is called general artificial intelligence. It would be an artificial intelligence indistinguishable from that of a human being.

It will not happen in five years, but obviously it will happen.

Many people say that this will never happen, but those of us who work in this field do not doubt that this will happen, it is only a matter of time to go from there. # 39; before.

"The teleportation has already been done, the information is teleported, for example", José Ignacio Latorre.

Gradually, we delegate all our decisions on artificial intelligence.

An example: the purification of the water of Barcelona is a process that until two years ago was controlled by humans, but it is now an artificial intelligence that does it.

And quantum computing will serve to create even more powerful artificial intelligences.

One study indicates that by 2050 there will be more relationship between a robot-human partner than a human-human partner. Do you think it will be like this?

Well, one of the things to come is that older people who are alone will have an artificial company: there will be a friendly voice that will call them and succeed in maintaining a dialogue with them. It's something that falls.

In Barcelona, ​​studies have revealed that 150,000 widows do not walk the streets.

And the attention of these people will be delegated to artificial intelligences. We will die by the hand of a robot.

And will there also be relationships between humans and robots? If I'm not mistaken, there is already a technology to create robots with human aspect, with human voices, it turns out that their price is still very high …

Yes, there are already several companies that make humanoid robots. But have you heard of the troubling theory of the valley?

According to this theory, as humanoid robots are more realistic, they produce a rejection.

People like a robot like Wall-e, that of the movie of the same name or those of Star Wars.

But when they start having very specific humanoid characteristics and they start to wink at you, and so on, people fall back.

Therefore, the adoption of an artificial intelligence in the form of a humanoid robot will probably take a long time.

But in the form of voice or badistant will become more and more common.

Does quantum physics not often affect science fiction? Study phenomena that often seem fantastic …

Someone said that advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. It's a beautiful phrase.

The fact that someone, thanks to a GPS, knows for example that your exact position seems to be magical.

But 24 satellites around the Earth send signals with great precision.

Science, of course, is the big frontier.

But science fiction is a very necessary genre for me because it helps us think and prepare for the future.

"2001: Odyssey in space", for example, is an excellent film where the basic questions are already about what happens if an artificial intelligence is too powerful.

If we teleport someday, it will be thanks to quantum physics?

Yes, the tele-transport has already been done, the information is teleported, for example.

You have an atom in a place on Earth in a certain state: you are excited, you are not excited, it does not matter.

And a protocol is established to transmit this information to another atom located in another part of the Earth.

The atom is not transported, only the information. And the protocol used for this purpose is a protocol based on quantum ideas such as entanglement.

Well, right now China has orbited a satellite called Micius and has managed to distribute entangled states at 7,000 kilometers.

"I want to believe that yes, there is a reality", José Ignacio Latorre

It is a quantum state shared in two places on Earth that allows the tele-transport of information from one place to another.

China, at the speed of dizziness, advances and exceeds in some areas Europe and America.

At this moment, there is a great geopolitical fight for the mastery of computer science and quantum communications.

In this great war, there are three actors: the United States, China and Europe. And clearly, Europe is lagging behind.

But can there be a tele-transport of people?

Macroscopic beings? No no no no.

Will there be future relationships between humans and robots?

What I am going to ask you surely seems a bit absurd. Reality, what our senses capture, what we touch, what we see, what we feel, what we taste, does it really exist?

Well, it's a very profound philosophical discussion that starts much earlier than quantum mechanics and tries to establish if there are differences between absolute reality and what the human brain perceives, if there is a separation between the outside world and the human spirit.

This is a debate that is already starting with Descartes and is undergoing a turnaround when quantum mechanics arrives.

Quantum mechanics does not enter into whether a reality exists, it only tells us that if we measure, we will get such a result, nothing more.

But what is it when it is not measured, quantum mechanics says nothing.

It is a science much more humble than it seems there; humble but incredibly powerful. That's the paradox.

I do not ask him as a quantum physicist, but as José Ignacio Latorre. Do you think that there is a reality?

I want to believe that there is a reality.

You argue that in three centuries we will no longer need a body. Can you explain it to me?

Is this why we want a body?

The reasoning that I am is the following: almost all we complete our body, for example I wear glbades, there are people who wear prostheses.

We also supplement our body chemically: we obtain drugs without stopping, we modify the chemistry of our body to live longer, to live better.

And we also accept that we can generate something more fun than reality itself: we go to the movies, we read novels …

With all this, our brains are happier than with reality, because going to the cinema, it is replacing reality with an invented reality.

Little by little, people who lose a limb have put us an artificial, to those who do not hear well we put a good hearing aid.

"Why should the reproduction be as before? Why do you need biological brains? They can be silicon or information in another format", José Ignacio Latorre

That is to say that we gradually replace parts of our body with others that send an equivalent signal to the brain.

Because the boss is the brain. Our whole body is a servant of the brain, nothing more.

And so, little by little, I think that after half a century, our body will be weaker and weaker, more and more substitutable.

And in this scenario, it is not unthinkable that one day there is more body.

But I must tell you that it is not me who invented all this, it is written for a long time.

But what will we be, just the brain?

Well, it's like that in the movie Matrix.

But then we can not reproduce …

And why should the reproduction be as before? And why do we need biological brains?

They can be a silicon substrate, they can be any information in another format. We can be an evolving link.

Just like there are jellyfish, there was diplodocus, we can say one day that there were human beings.

Link of what? What will come after us?

The singularity theory states that a machine powerful enough and capable of improving will enter an unstoppable chain of improvement and will greatly exceed us.

Will we then be immortal? If there is no body, there is no death …

Indeed, there is a very deep discussion, that is, if we become immortal, time disappears.

The quantum world that arises poses many ethical problems. What is the most important in your opinion?

The first big challenge we face is the traceability of programs, who created them, what criteria, to understand who and what is behind the machine's decision-making capability.

In this sense, there are some very interesting ideas because it is the artificial intelligence itself that defines its ethics.

This idea that I like a lot: given that humans are so bad with ethics, maybe artificial intelligence is better.

It would be a matter of going through the history of mankind, looking for good principles and inserting them into an artificial intelligence.

In the rest of my life, I'm afraid I do not see it, but I think in the long run it will happen.

* This article is part of the digital version of Hay Festival Cartagena, a meeting of writers and thinkers that takes place in this Colombian city from January 31 to February 3, 2019..