What Do 5G and Quantum Computing Mean for You?

Statistics and probability theory will help us make sense of a world awash with data

"IBM Quantum Computing" by IBM Research is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

In 1993, William Gibson, the speculative fiction writer who invented the word cyberspace, said: “The future is already here - it's just not very evenly distributed.” The quote is very insightful. If you want to know what will happen next, look to the entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers working on the cutting edge of new technology; and look at where the bravest investors are making their bets.

You have almost certainly heard of 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT). Both are related projects to connect everything to everything. For example, next-generation fridges will connect to the internet and carry sensors that will monitor if you are running low on any core supplies. Imagine getting an alert on your phone that you need to buy more milk. One obvious consequence of 5G will be a world awash with massive amounts of data.

Quantum computing is probably less well known to the general public than 5G, but it could be just as transformative as the internet and smartphones. The field began in 1980 when a physicist suggested using the strangeness of quantum states in computing and has been gaining ground ever since. Experts expect quantum computers to gain significant traction in the 2020s.

The basic unit of measurement for quantum computing is the qubit. In 2019, scientists at Google managed to run a circuit with 53 qubits. The scientists said that it would take a classical computer 10,000 years to solve the same problem. A computer with 100 qubits is possible within the next few years. To put this in context, a computer capable of running a circuit with 300 qubits would be able to handle more states than the total number of particles in the universe. Like 5G and IoT, then, quantum computing will lead to massive amounts of data.

You will have heard buzzwords like algorithms, artificial intelligence, data analytics or machine learning in recent years. Although there are significant differences between them, what you might not have realized that there are also deep similarities. All of them seek to make sense of massive amounts of data. They are all made possible by statistics and probability theory.

All these trends are pushing in the same direction. We are moving towards a world that will be characterized by massive amounts of data and someone who has a strong grounding in statistics and probability theory will have an advantage over someone who doesn’t. This is useful information to share with any young people who are unsure of what to study. Also, expect a growing gap between data-literate people and those who use unsophisticated conspiratorial reasoning to understand the world.

The founder of a data analytics company once told me that everyone he knows is worried that they are losing their memories. In reality, he said, our brains didn’t evolve to handle quite so much information. Most of our ancestors were illiterate and lived in small settlements where they knew a handful of people and mostly only moved a few miles in any direction. If you spend half an hour on social media, you will be exposed to significantly more information than your ancestors would have received in weeks. Tools like data analytics and machine learning are designed to bridge the gap between our biological limits and the sheer volume of data in the modern world.

Of course, in a world characterized by floods of data, some of it will contradict our core views (here are mine) and trigger cognitive dissonance. I suspect that this means that those people who work on their ability to suspend judgement and engage in double-loop learning will have an advantage over those who don’t.

Finally, Yogi Berra, the quoteable baseball star, once said: “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” He was quite correct, so please let me hedge this post. I have taken a look at the cutting edge of tech and projected it a little way into the future. What I haven’t done is to mention what statisticians call fat tail risks - low-probability events with huge consequences. Examples would include nuclear war, climate disaster, more global pandemics, alien invasions or a geomagnetic reversal of the Earth’s poles. Any of them could seriously disrupt any trends that appear to be developing today. Consider yourself warned!

Sharpen Your Axe is a project to develop a community who want to think critically about the media, conspiracy theories and current affairs without getting conned by gurus selling fringe views. Please subscribe to get this content in your inbox every week. Shares on social media are appreciated! If this is the first post you have seen, I recommend starting with the critical-thinking rabbit hole.

[Updated on 10 March 2022] Opinions expressed on Substack and Twitter are those of Rupert Cocke as an individual and do not reflect the opinions or views of the organization where he works or its subsidiaries.