Contradictheory: A quantum of truth

A Quantinuum model H2 quantum computer on display during the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference in Washington on Oct 29. Quantum computing might one day break the encryption that protects everything on the Internet so it's something Malaysia should know about – starting yesterday now. — Bloomberg

IN the 1990s, there used to be a secretary in a company I once worked at who everyone turned to whenever we had to host a high-level event. She had the definitive list of all government ministers, especially the correct full names and titles. People can get extremely sensitive about these two things, so woe betide anyone who got them wrong.

Her secret? After every Cabinet reshuffle, she’d keep the relevant newspaper pullout and update it with clippings. Not exactly high-tech, but still very reliable. If you wanted the correct information, you went to her.

Which, of course, is what I thought of when Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) had to apologise recently for getting the names of three South-East Asian leaders wrong during a broadcast. Their list was apparently out of date, last updated sometime before May 2024, when Lawrence Wong replaced Lee Hsien Loong as Prime Minister of Singapore.

Now, perhaps I’m overreaching here, but if you work in a newsroom, surely one of your job requirements is to keep up with the news? You should at least know who is running your neighbouring countries.

Some have suggested the error happened because someone used artificial intelligence (AI) to generate the list, because there was a cutoff date for the facts. I’m not entirely convinced that’s what happened because surely by now everybody knows the most important question to ask when using AI is this: “How do you know it’s right?”

This is pretty much the stance you should take when presented with any new fact. And yet, we’ve all seen how easily people trust what sounds good over what’s actually correct. As the last five years have shown us, people often believe a stranger on TikTok before they believe a scientist or a doctor.

Look, I get it. Explaining hard stuff is hard. I could try to explain why some AI programmes are more trustworthy than others, or why “RAG” is supposed to make them smarter. But at some point, it’s easier just to say: sometimes AI gets things wrong, and you have to check for yourself.

Which brings me to another example of hard stuff that’s even harder to explain: quantum computing.

Recently, Google announced that its quantum processor ran a verified algorithm faster than any conventional supercomputer could. But what does that mean?

You could say that a normal computer is like a convection oven that heats food in an obvious way. A quantum computer is like a microwave which uses totally different physics, and under the right conditions, it still works astonishingly well.

The problem is, quantum mechanics doesn’t care about common sense. One of Google’s scientists, Michel Devoret, won a Nobel Prize this year for effectively showing that a particle can pass through a barrier even when it doesn’t have enough energy to climb over it. Yes, it sounds a little outlandish – but that’s the quantum world for you.

Still, this isn’t just academic weirdness. Quantum computing might one day break the encryption that protects everything from your Internet banking to your photos of babies and kittens.

The US National Security Agency has already mandated that all federal systems switch to quantum-resistant encryption by 2035. Apple, for its part, quietly upgraded its iMessage protocol last year to defend against what’s known as the “harvest now, decrypt later” strategy, where data is stolen now, to be cracked once quantum computers mature.

So yes, the risk is real and it’s something Malaysia should know about. But here’s the uncomfortable question: How will we prepare for it? How will Malaysian companies safeguard their data? How will our government protect infrastructure?

How will we even talk about this when the words “quantum computing” make people’s eyes glaze over?

The solution of course is obvious: Set up a small, trustworthy team of experts to look into it seriously. But you and I both know that while they carefully craft a strategic response, there will be a slew of snake-oil salesmen who promise off-the-shelf “quantum- safe” software at not-safe-for-your-wallet prices.

That’s why we need trusted media more than ever: to make sense of competing claims, debunk the nonsense, and explain what matters. But how can the press play that role if it can’t even get peoples’ names right? How can we talk about “the truth” when your uncle on WhatsApp sounds more convincing than a newspaper reporter?

Fact-checking has somehow become a dirty word, associated more with “gotcha” moments than with honest curiosity. But I think of it differently. If the search for truth is noble, then scepticism and verification are not weapons to put down others, but tools to help us make better decisions.

It’s not about shouting “You’re wrong!” on social media, but asking, “How sure are we about this, and what happens if we’re mistaken?”

The RTM slip-up isn’t really a story about AI getting it wrong. It’s a story about how easily we’ve abdicated responsibility for truth to someone or something else.

And maybe that’s the real paradox of the digital age: We built these tools to make our lives easier, and then forgot that we still need to think, “How do we know it’s right?”

In his fortnightly column Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the theory that logic is the antithesis of emotion but people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.