ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY

It’s not mandatory (nor is it possible) to make use of all the existing technology, nor is it mandatory for one to be aware of all the details of each application or technological product. It is, therefore, difficult to make an informed decision on many of these issues. In the post-truth and fake news era, the only responsible position you can take when talking about a new technology (quantum computing, the metaverse, NFTs, electric cars, gravity batteries, etc.) is, therefore, one of skepticism. Who is telling me this? What do they gain with it? And, especially, precisely because this person is describing something I find unbelievable, should I believe him or her? However, just as we must moderate our optimism to ensure we don’t move forward too fast, it’s also necessary to guard against the dead weight of pessimism.

There are too many “I told you so” addicts waiting for things not to work out: a critical mass (in both senses of the term) who can end up turning their omens into self-fulfilling prophecies.

YOU CAN PUT LIPSTICK ON A PIG, BUT IT’S STILL A PIG

As with YouTube and books, most dichotomous combinations can actually coexist without much fuss. Quantum computers aren’t going to eradicate classical computing. In fact, a classical computer is needed to monitor quantum computers and collect the results from their computations. Desktop quantum computers will be classic computers with an internal quantum module. Similarly, the appearance of the metaverse is not going to make the rest of the Internet disappear (not to mention offline life, as if we were living in Ready Player One, like some seem to fear).

If you stop to think about it, metaverse platforms aren’t even a real qualitative change. We have all gotten used to video calls, thanks to the pandemic, and MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) like World of Warcraft have been around for close to 20 years. And what is a metaverse but an online game designed to include a greater capacity for communication between users? Something similar happens with the shops in the metaverse that sell products to alter your avatar’s appearance; shops that have made so many people throw their hands to their heads. In-game purchases have also been around for many years, and other payment models in exchange for digital services, such as online concerts, are not too far from what video rental shops were (remember those?)

TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH

However, there is one thing that the metaverse platform is going to make a difference in: quantity. If you arrive to a party early and there are two people in the room, you only have to say hello twice. The next guests will have to say hello three, four, five times, and so on. The last to arrive will have to greet, for example, twenty people. Ten times more than you! To put this increase into perspective, imagine what you would do if your salary was multiplied by that number tomorrow. And now imagine that Facebook’s two billion or so users cross over to the metaverse: the movements of each one of them will have to be made known to everyone else in real time for the network to thrive.

It is precisely here where quantum computing stands out: the processing of large volumes of information. Because quantum computing is not inherently faster than classical computing; if you have ten books on the shelf (paper books, the kind I like to read), sorting them alphabetically by author’s last name might take more time than simply visually scanning all ten spines at a glance each time you’re looking for one of them. However, it’s clear that, for a library, alphabetical order is essential.

Something similar occurs with quantum computing: at small and medium volumes, those that can be dealt with at the current level of technology, it’s not useful, except in specific cases in which the problem naturally fits the mechanisms that make quantum computing work. However, a parallel processing capacity makes quantum computing ideal for dealing with large volumes of information. In fact, the metaverse could be an intersection between these two categories. Quantum computing will be good at handling data in the metaverse because of its volume, that is true, but the modeling of objects from the metaverse could be another of this technology’s strengths, as is the case when modeling molecules (one of these particular problems that work well with quantum computing, even in small-scale contexts).

As I said at the beginning, I like to read books on paper, and I don’t think there is a metaverse that’s going to change that. But, just as today I no longer have a television at home, and I have dinner logged into YouTube, I would really like to discover what quantum metaverse I will connect to when I’m having lunch ten years from now.