Quantum Leap | Insiders On Background

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Hi, Jules and Jez here, and every week on Not Stupid, we unpack the news of the week.

From the stuff that matters to the stories you're obsessed with.

There's a heck of a lot of women in the Liberal Party who won't say publicly that they support it, or when they leave, they say we should think about it.

Politicians say all sorts of things when they leave.

You can find Not Stupid on the ABC Listen Up.

Well, there's been much debate this week on one side of politics, at least, about net zero.

The Coalition is now reviewing its position on the 2050 emissions target.

The government is most certainly not.

It sees its landslide election win as a mandate to now get on with the renewables rollout.

But what does the Australian economy look like under a net zero scenario?

How will it differ to today's resources-heavy economy?

Well, this is where the conversation around artificial intelligence and quantum computing comes in.

There have been some scary forecasts about AI replacing all sorts of jobs, but there are opportunities too.

These technologies are likely to transform the economy over the next 20 years.

So I'm keen to explore where they're at right now.

Should we be worried?

Should we be excited?

And how should the government be thinking about its role in maximising the benefits and limiting the damage of this enormous change.

I'm David Spears on Ngunnawal Country at Parliament House in Canberra.

Welcome to Insiders on Background.

Well Kathy Foley was Australia's chief scientist until the end of last year and in that role contributed to Australia's first national quantum strategy.

Dr.

Foley is also a former chief scientist at the CSIRO and now sits on the CSIRO board.

She has a background in quantum physics and basically knows more about this stuff than most of us.

Kathy Foley, welcome to you.

Good to talk to you.

Thanks for having me.

So, look, we'll come to those economic opportunities and risks in a moment, but I do think it's important to start, and maybe you get bored of answering this question, but a bit of an explanation around what is quantum computing, how it differs from artificial intelligence, and perhaps how the two will one day complement each other.

Because I think a lot of people still get very confused, particularly about what quantum computing is.

Can you give us just a quick explanation once more?

So, we know about classical computers that they allow us to use a bit which is a one or a zero.

So it's able to do calculations, which we all know and love and it's part of our everyday.

We are all wearing computers with our watches, you know, computers, everything about us is all related to computing and it's based on silicon

microchips or now into they're much more, they're small than micro, they're nano chips.

And that's become part of our everyday.

Since about 2000, we've seen the development of nanotechnology, which has allowed us to control states of matter in ways we couldn't do before.

And as a consequence, we can use quantum effects that allow us to, instead of just having a single one or a zero bit, which you probably all know of, we can create what we call qubits or

those bits of the computer, which allow us to do multiple

calculations at the same time.

So it's a little bit like, you know, when you have a coin and you've got the

heads and tails,

a classical computer is looking at head or a tail.

In the quantum computer space, what we're doing is being able to

make calculations happen when it's up in the air.

And so that means it can be many states at once.

And the basic story is that you can do much more complex and

bigger

problem space questions, which currently you cannot do with a classical computer, because

we just can't do things fast enough in order to make the answers.

useful.

So

does that mean things like finding cures for disease, answers to some climate change questions, all of these are potentially possible with quantum computing?

That's correct.

The idea of being able to make or design new therapeutics because we can actually do quantum calculations.

Normally

in a classical computer we're making some

some boundary conditions and some approximations.

That means that we're never getting the exact answer.

But with a quantum computer, one of the first application areas which will have an enormous impact is the design of new materials, from whether it's batteries or therapeutics, as well as being able to do things in the finance industry,

being able to detect fraud faster, for example, or even optimizing tools such as being able to use it for logistics, from making sure that we're able to control the transport industry so that when something breaks down in one area, it doesn't mean that the whole city is at a grid.

We can get a design which allows to optimize transport systems.

And it goes on and on.

There are so many aspects of everyday life that will be improved because of our ability to use quantum capabilities, which we don't have access, well, we have emergent access to now.

And by 2050, it's going to be something which is going to be just ubiquitous and part of our everyday, and we won't even notice it.

Yeah, and probably a lot of things we can't even think about now that are going to change as a result of this.

And how does artificial intelligence fit into uh quantum computing because artificial intelligence is with us now but you know we're told it's going to exponentially um accelerate in the coming years in what it can do how does it fit with quantum computing

well uh i it will just increase the power of it we already know that quantum uh that ai

is uh only limited by the uh high performance computers where a lot of these algorithms are run so that when we type in our questions and in a large language model and there are many of them now available and they're becoming something which I think rapidly is,

I hope, is being seen as a real uplift in our ability to gather information and synthesize that quickly.

This will be allowing us to do this with bigger databases, although that's some way off at the moment.

I think we'll see classical computers with quantum accelerators and that's happening in Australia now at the Pausey supercomputer over in Perth.

It has a quantum brilliance

quantum computer attached to that, and they're working on being able to do some of these early stage quantum accelerators to classical computers, which will allow us to do,

I guess, have AI work better for us and be more powerful.

Yeah, work for us rather than work against us.

There is a lot of fear around jobs being lost in drives for productivity and greater efficiency.

Humans essentially become secondary.

Should we be worried or should we be excited about the opportunities?

Well, I'm excited about it for a couple of reasons.

The first is that when we've seen in history any new technology come on board, it's never led to reduced jobs.

It's meant a change in jobs and more jobs.

So that's the first thing is that we'll be seeing a different setup of

what jobs or what work people will do.

And And that is something which we really need to plan for and make sure that we've got things in place so that we're training our young people and retraining those who are in the system already to be able to transition to where future jobs are.

That's the first thing.

But the second is that populations at the moment are beginning to plateau in most countries.

And actually having enough workers is going to be a major issue in the future.

And we are not just not going to have enough workers.

And some of the things that AI and automation is going to provide us will be the ability to have

the standard of living we want and aspire to have

and do that with a reduced workforce, not because people won't have jobs, but because there's just not enough people.

But this isn't like previous technology breakthroughs because this can think.

Doesn't that present a greater risk in terms of our jobs, in terms of positions being replaced?

I hate to agree with you.

They don't think.

AI tools are just statistical models that

go through and use information that's done before and being able to go through and synthesize things in a way that tells you based on

what data they've been trained on and information they've got access to, then they're able to draw that out.

So if they've got good information, then they're able to provide that into something which is an outcome which we ask for.

The biggest, so it doesn't think for us.

It actually just helps augment our ability to synthesize huge amounts of data and information.

So this is

I was just going to say the thing that is problematic with any technology is that it can be used by people who don't have goodness in their heart to use tools in good ways to have bad outcomes.

And we're seeing this with proliferation of things like deep fakes, miss and disinformation coming through.

And also there, if you anyone who uses an AI tool will see that it always says these are still under development.

They're not always correct and you need to check.

And of course, you should be using them as a tool, not as the be-all and end-all.

They should be something which helps you as a worker or as someone studying to actually have a starting point, which will get you somewhere at at a baseline faster and then be able to work on that to have a better outcome than you could have even dreamed of with the amount of time you've got to put into a you know a particular project.

So this, I guess, comes to the role of government in what sort of regulations or guardrails it does need to start thinking about and no doubt it is starting to think about this and government's everywhere.

What would you suggest need to be at this point of the development of these technologies?

What should be the priorities?

Look, I think, first of all, you've got to have the social license for this.

And I know when I was in the chief scientist role that the government was spending quite some time with a lot of consultation to understand where Australians want to have the guardrails so that we're able to make sure that we protect people, that they've got

the privacy issues or the misuse, the ability to make sure that you understand and have

the ability to know, for example, if you've got filters in there or

behind the scenes information being grabbed and being used in ways which you're not aware of.

Those sorts of things need to be, I think, more transparent.

So transparency is something that I think is important.

The ability to, you know, for example, if you're using some of the social media tools and suddenly you look at something for a few seconds longer just because you think, oh, what's that?

And then suddenly you get mountains of that coming through uh as as you know like cat videos or something with the royal family or or some news item then you um

you

don't have any control over what is served up to you on those some of those social media platforms so the ability to have just your own decision saying i can turn that filter off i don't want to see these things i think is important we need to make sure that we have things set up so we have young people introduced to these tools at the right time.

I'm not an expert as to when the education of our young people is at the point where we should introduce them to these

important everyday tools of the future.

But

these are, again,

community decisions.

And I know that there's been a lot of work done to identify where those.

that the points are and I'm expecting that it'll be, you know, the new government coming in will be going through and finalising all those.

Yeah, what about when it comes to the industries that are most likely to be transformed quickly?

You know, whether it is, you know, logistics, transport, you mentioned, maybe food processing, whatever it is, you can see industry wanting to grab on to anything that's going to drive efficiency, productivity, give them an edge over their competitors here or abroad.

Should government be playing any sort of role, do you think, in putting any sort of limits around how far far industry can go in using these applications?

Well, that would go back to, as you were saying before,

sort of safe use,

the, I guess, agreed use of AI tools.

But you've got to remember we're in a competitive world.

And globally, there's been some work looking at

what is our

global agreements on the ethical use of AI.

And there's been multiple meetings which were originated by the UK.

I think US has previously done that, that might change with their new government.

But

what I'm seeing around the world is a real desire to have some uniformity as much as possible on how to make sure that these new technologies have those guardrails which are interoperable from country to country.

But there is a bit of a difference in approaches.

I know in Europe they're much more on tighter regulation.

In

other countries, they're more interested in

something which is a little bit more free market.

And finding that sweet spot is, I think, what the government's trying to do.

And with that is supporting businesses so that they can be

competitive because it's, you know, Australia is a small market, so we have to export a lot to be a prosperous nation.

And if we're not competitive and we don't use the tools that are at hand in a safe and ethical way, and we should always have that.

Australia is very proud of its values.

It's something that I think came out in the last election.

And when I

undertook the national conversation on behalf of the government looking at our national science and research priorities, Australian values was the number and maintaining them was Australia's number one priority, which I thought was really interesting, especially with mis and disinformation being there and how do we navigate social media, mental health, looking after people and have that sort of secure nation from that perspective is a very high priority.

And if you look at the science and research priorities, that's one of the areas that they're looking at as saying what is the research we need to do so we are making good decisions to support industry to support the general population and support government in pathways forward.

Speaking of good decisions I mean we are a small economy but where are we at?

when it comes to the race on quantum computing in particular because you've been involved in this.

How is Australia placed and how does that investment that again you provided advice on the Australian government and the Queensland government investing in the SAI quantum company, How is that looking some years down the track?

Well, Australia is one of the top countries in the world in quantum.

I'd say we're in the top five or six,

both in research and in developing our industry.

Just in the last five years, we've seen 50 startups and they're happening on a regular basis coming in, starting up with translation of the great research being done in our university sector, which has been at a volume and that allows us to be competitive.

We've seen state governments and Commonwealth seeing this as a really important new industry for Australia and I think we can say we do have a quantum industry in Australia with other companies coming into the country as well.

and

building up the ecosystem because an ecosystem needs to have the workforce and we definitely are on par on track with actually we're training not just the workforce for Australia but we want to keep them here but a lot of the workforce overseas actually came from Australian training

the other is you've got to have the supply chain you've got to have the support for research translation and all the different programs the government's set up and and of course you've got to have that

It was almost like an anchor tenant or a major company that said, we are serious in Australia.

And the PsyQuantum investment has proven that it really got the attention of the world.

If nothing else, it was a $3 billion company a year ago.

Now it's a $10 billion company.

Wow.

And so if nothing else, it was a good investment for Australia.

Because part of that involved taking an equity stake.

So presumably that's better.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, and you mentioned the workforce.

So we wonder about what the Australian economy looks like in 2040, 2050.

I was mentioning net zero earlier, and this will mean less reliance on resources in Australia.

Certainly coal exports

will be gone presumably by then, thermal coal at least.

What sort of workforce can we anticipate around quantum computing if we are going to have a quantum industry in Australia?

Well, the workforce we've calculated to be of the order of 16,000 people.

But you've got to look at also what export replacements we need to have if we're looking at not just developing getting to net zero, which means that the amount of thermal ecology said and oil and gas will be reduced, but also circular economy is coming on board as well.

So

iron ore and other critical minerals

will have

some,

they'll always be needed, but they may be at a reduced amount.

And so that will also take a hit on our exports.

So, you know, it could be anywhere between about $120 to $300 billion worth of exports annually that we have to replace by 2050.

And quantum is one aspect of it.

We've got hydrogen.

We've got a very

fantastic biotech industry, which is huge, and we need to really fan the flame on that.

Our deep tech businesses,

just IT industry, has grown enormously in the last five years.

And what we've seen is a real entrepreneurial burst in Australia.

And what's needed now is to help those new businesses that have have started up.

And Australia starts up businesses in the tech area at the same rate as the USA does per head of population.

So that's pretty good.

But what we need to do now is make sure that we support those businesses so that they can grow and be

medium and then large companies and brand names for everyone to know in Australia.

How do we

go off overseas?

Yeah, how do we get that next step?

And if we're okay now at the startup, how do we get to that next stage of development?

Yeah, so that's been

an area which we've not got good track record in.

And if you look at things like the National Reconstruction Fund, that's been set up to support those businesses to grow main sequence ventures.

The other thing that's really interesting is Australia's got a lot of investment from

from which is available through our superannuation funds.

And it's interesting to see that two superannuation funds have invested into main sequence ventures.

So I think that's going to be a really interesting area to watch as we see

some

very good new businesses coming on board and the investment coming from different sources than we've had in the past.

Government also has a role to play to make sure that we have all the

ability to take things through without

too many missteps.

So that, and say, for example, our med tech area is, you know, it's our biggest research field in the nation.

We need to make sure that it's easy to allow a company to be able to develop.

So you've got the translation hubs that we've got the ability to invest with different sources of investment at the right time.

And then also making sure that the regulatory requirements are ones which allow the safety to happen, but don't become burdensome so that they're not able to,

that they can actually build their business here and not end up going overseas where it's easier to commercialize something.

So that's the challenge is making sure our ecosystem is tuned up and fit for purpose.

And as part of that, finding the workforce, you know, I mean, you mentioned earlier a 16,000 strong workforce.

I'm assuming they're going to require some pretty smart cookies.

This brings us to another idea or big idea.

Not necessarily.

Oh, okay.

Well, tell me about that.

That includes that, that's, that's only a little bit of that will be, you know, people with PhDs in quantum physics.

Most of it will be, we will need

tens of thousands of electricians, for example, electrical engineers,

people who can do metal work.

Some of that will be

automated, but

some of it won't, designers,

IT specialists, programmers.

It's actually a very broad range of people.

Even in the area of people who know how to set up a tech business and be able to export it and make make sure that they link in overseas and know how that whole system works.

Because we have to remember that our market is small.

So we need to be recognising where our comparative and competitive advantages are and really ramp them up.

So two things for those engineers and electricians,

we do have a shortage of them, but you've been pointing this out previously.

There are plenty in the country who can't transfer their accreditation from where they've come from to be recognised in Australia as engineers or whatever it is.

Do you suggest something needs to change on that front?

Well, we all know that's an issue and it has been for a while.

I'm sure all of us have been in taxis where the taxi drivers are a recent migrant and

they've got a pretty fantastic degree from the country they've come from, but it isn't an

automatic recognition of their qualifications.

And there's good reason for that, but I think that there's a need for us to make make sure that we don't over-egg it so that we're

dropping

yeah well we don't want to drop standards Australian standards are very important and

that's important for not just safety but also the quality of what Australia represents in its in its in what it produces but also though we need to see how we can streamline and support because it's expensive often to get your

accreditation done and also it's not a one-size-fits-all.

Different countries will have different levels of

educational excellence, and this happens in the medical fields as well as in engineering and a whole range of other professions.

So, working out how we can make sure that we've got the right system in place and the support, so that you know, migrants coming into the country often might need a bit of support to be able to get those skills recognised and also understand the Australian workforce and the way things are happening.

I know the Skills Australia

is looking at that.

I know Engineers Australia is doing this.

And I just hope that we can see a real shift in that happen in the next year or two.

And then the other proposal that you've put forward goes to open access to research.

Just tell us a bit about what you're suggesting there, how it works at the moment in terms of trying to access research and what needs to change.

Oh, I'm so glad you raised this because it is something which is extraordinary that most academic research is done with the, you know, paid by taxes.

Australia does about 3.5% of the world's research.

And so we need to engage in the whole research system across the globe.

But the process is that

to make sure that our research is right or as correct as possible, researchers submit their manuscripts to a publisher or a journal, an academic journal, which is for their particular area.

It's then refereed by people that I don't know who it is, usually blind refereeing by people who are experts in the field.

And after much heartache, I have to say, and corrections and improvements, eventually a paper is accepted and then it is published in that journal.

These are all digital now.

They're not hard copy in a library that sort of turned around in about 2007 where everything went digital.

And as a consequence, most of those research papers are behind a paywall, unless the author pays an extra fee to make it open access for anyone to read.

And the majority of papers are behind paywalls.

So if you go searching for something

and you come up with

some of the original research and you preface, do you want to read it?

And you say, yes, you can, but you've got to pay, you know, sometimes it's between $80 to $500 just to read a research paper.

And academics or researchers in research institutions usually can access them because their organization has a library, a digital library, and pays a subscription fee to the different publishers.

And there's, you know, more than a thousand publishers.

There's four big ones and about 13 medium-sized ones, and then a long tail.

And then what my suggestion was, because this is fundamental to knowledge,

that wouldn't it be great if we did like the PBS, you know, with our therapeutics, we bring all the funds together into a central body.

So at the moment, we have multiple libraries all having their, they're paying their bills to the multitude of publishers.

We bring them all together, that fund, and it's about half a billion dollars a year.

So it's big money.

and have a single relationship with each of those publishers so that then anyone with an Australian IP address will automatically be able to read the paper without having to pay that fee.

And with that organisation,

it means that you, the general public, industry, school teachers, professionals, school kids,

and startups will be able to read the actual literature.

So it means that the correct and accredited work because it's gone through a process to say it's as good as we can assess it to be.

We are always, you know, the research process is always building on what we've known and we get better and better.

But it means that

the misinformation, which is for free, is at least going to have competition with the stuff we know is accredited.

So it's a pathway too for dealing with medicine disinformation as well.

And we've done a lot of work on this, showing that it's,

and you can access it on my odds, on the chief scientist website, or the reports we've done.

But it's shown that it will uplift productivity, it will manage our social cohesion, it'll create

increased competition, and professionals and public servants,

media will have access to the information they need to do their job better.

Well, that is a fascinating idea, one definitely worth following up with the government because,

yeah, you're right.

It seems to me that it would give all of those people you mentioned the access to genuine, factual information that could lead to all sorts of further breakthroughs as well.

The publishers really love it as well because it's a single relationship.

It's basically changing as a partnership with the publishers

so that we're able to work with them to be able to make sure that this is affordable, that it's one where it's leading to research to be accessible.

And they are all the publishers that I've worked with

in checking in on this idea have

said that

they're lining up to say, How can we make this work?

Because they see this as the future for academic publishing.

Very interesting.

Kathy Foley, it's been wonderful to talk to you and so many big ideas in this conversation.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks, David.

And if you have any thoughts, do drop us a line, insiders at abc.net.au.

We'll be back Sunday morning.

I hope you can join us from the couch for Insiders, 9 a.m.

on ABC TV.

Bye for now.

You're making us all feel very excited about being here.