TUM Think Tank
Where today's societal challenges meet tomorrow's technological excellence.
Quantum technologies can potentially reshape our society, for better or worse. For instance, quantum simulations could play a pivotal role in combating climate change, yet they could also be exploited to develop chemical weapons. How can we ensure that our society benefits from quantum technologies while mitigating potential risks?
In a commenary titled "A call for responsible quantum technology," published today in Nature Physics, Urs Gasser of the Quantum Social Lab at the TUM Think Tank, along with co-authors Eline De Jong and Mauritz Kop, advocate for the responsible handling of quantum technologies and the establishment of guidelines. Based on an international interdisciplinary effort led by the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology, the authors introduce a framework for responsible quantum technologies that integrates ethical, legal, socio-ecological, and policy implications into the research and development of quantum technologies.
Developing suitable guardrails and governance frameworks for quantum technologies are among the main objectives of the Quantum Social Lab, co-directed by Urs Gasser and Fabienne Marco. Towards this end, the lab brings together an interdisciplinary community to examine, evaluate, and help shape the development and use of quantum-based applications, and promote responsible innovation.
"History teaches us that ethical, legal, socio-economic, and policy implications are often only an afterthought when a powerful technology has already made its way from the lab into the wild,” says lead author Urs Gasser. “Given the possible ramifications of quantum technology, we should not repeat this mistake and create guardrails while it is still malleable. Our call in Nature Physics invites the science community to help shape defining principles and practices.”
The full commentary on responsible quantum technology can be found in Nature Physics:
“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems, we don’t even know are problems yet.“ Richard Riley (U.S. Secretary of Education under the Administration of President Clinton)
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) with its ability to generate synthetic data is considered a revolution in machine learning. The example of ChatGPT shows that such technology can not only automate text creation but also increase human creativity. Despite the current limitations and challenges associated with the use of such technology, the profound public curiosity led to a record-breaking one million users within only five-day after its launch. Since the release of ChatGPT to the public in November 2022, we are observing a consistent reduction in technological cycles of Generative AI.
These technologies hold an unbounded potential to foster and promote adaptive, cooperative, and immersive learning environments tailored to individual learners. Characterized by their ubiquity, adaptability to the learner, cost-effectiveness, they bear the potential to serve as tools for user empowerment in the large scale. Such advancements promise to bring us a big step closer to realizing the UNESCO Education 2030 Agenda, advocating for a human-centered approach to AI, which fostering inclusivity and equity in education. In line with the mission statement "AI for all", the aim is to ensure that this technological revolution benefits everyone, especially in the areas of innovation and knowledge dissemination and is used in a responsible way.
Fostering creativity and critical thinking
Hence, to adequately equip learners for their future professional and personal goals, it is crucial to provide them with competencies in addition to basic knowledge. These competencies should enable learners to compete in an environment where numerous tasks are automated, complex cognitive processes are required, personal responsibility and interpersonal skills are increasing, and interdisciplinary collaboration is the basis for solving complicated societal problems. The mandate for education is therefore to evolve from tasks rooted in routine and impersonality to tasks that are personalized, multifaceted, and creative. We need to develop strategies that promote multiple competencies beyond traditional curricula, with an emphasis on fostering creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication.
We are currently facing an exciting and disruptive change in education. The most important question remains: How can we democratize access to innovation and knowledge, create a more equitable and inclusive academic landscape, and meet the demands of a world in transition? What pressing challenges do we need to address towards this goal? This is where I am also interested in a perspective from the neurosciences - from my colleague Aldo Faisal: How can interdisciplinary approaches, and in particular insights from neuroscience, help to distinguish between the outputs and utterances produced by an AI and those produced by humans?
Global discourse series "One Topic, One Loop"
Four people from four different countries and four different universities discuss a current topic in research and teaching. The series begins with an initial question to which the first person responds and asks the next person another question on the same topic. The series ends with the first person answering the last question and reflecting on all previous answers. The topic of the first season is Large Language Models and their impact on research and teaching.
Find the whole series with Aldo Faisal, Professor of AI & Neuroscience at Imperial College London, Jerry John Kponyo, Associate Professor of Telecomunnications Engineering at Kwame Nkrumah' University of Science and Technology and Sune Lehmann Jørgensen, Professor at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science at Technical University of Denmark here.
The author
Prof. Dr. Enkelejda Kasneci is the co-lead of the Generative AI Taskforce, here at the TUM Think Tank. She is also heading the Chair of Human-Centered Technologies for Learning at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology and is director of the TUM Center for Educational Technologies and a member of the Munich Data Science Institute at TUM. Before being appointed to a professorship at TUM, Enkelejda Kasneci studied informatics and conducted research into human-machine interactions at the University of Tübingen.