Towards Responsible Quantum Technology published by Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

Boston, MA, March 21, 2023—In a landmark contribution to the global dialogue on technology governance, the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society has published the foundational article, "Towards Responsible Quantum Technology." This significant work, the result of a deeply interdisciplinary and transatlantic collaboration, lays out a comprehensive conceptual framework for steering the development of quantum technologies (QT) in a direction that is safe, ethical, and aligned with democratic values.

The manuscript, which was also published in the Hastings Science & Technology Law Journal by the University of California, College of the Law, San Francisco, and in the University of Cambridge repository -with preprints at Stanford Law, ArxiV and the European Commission’s Futurium website- represents a concerted effort to get ahead of the regulatory curve. It argues for a proactive, principled approach to governance while the technology is still malleable, learning from the often-reactive postures taken with previous technological waves like AI and the internet.

A Transatlantic Constellation of Scholars

The paper is authored by a distinguished group of international scholars led by Mauritz Kop, Visiting ‘Quantum & Law’ Scholar at Stanford and the imminent Founding Director of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology. The team represents a formidable convergence of expertise from the world's leading academic institutions, including Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Cambridge, the University of Waterloo, and the Universities of Munich, Amsterdam, Maastricht, and Copenhagen.

This collaboration brought together leading lights in law, data science, theoretical quantum physics, philosophy and ethics, socioeconomics, materials science and engineering, and innovation policy. The author group includes Mateo Aboy, Eline De Jong, Urs Gasser, I. Glenn Cohen, Timo Minssen, Teresa Quintel, Mark Brongersma, Luciano Floridi, and Raymond Laflamme, whose collective insights provide a holistic and robust foundation for the proposed framework.

The RQT Framework: Integrating Quantum-ELSPI and RRI

At the heart of the paper is the conceptual framework for Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT). This framework is designed to systematically integrate considerations of the Ethical, Legal, Social, and Policy Implications (ELSPI) of quantum technologies directly into the research and development lifecycle.

The RQT framework is built upon the established dimensions of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)—anticipation, inclusion, reflection, and responsiveness. By merging these two approaches, Quantum-ELSPI and RRI, the authors have created a powerful tool for ensuring that the development of quantum is not driven solely by technical or commercial imperatives, but by a deep and abiding commitment to societal well-being.

Operationalizing Responsible Quantum Technology: The 10 Principles and Future Regulation

The "Towards Responsible Quantum Technology" paper is the first in a series of studies designed to build a comprehensive governance architecture. It lays the conceptual groundwork that is further operationalized in a subsequent study led by Kop, the "10 Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation." This second paper translates the high-level SEA framework into concrete, actionable principles for real-world application.

Ultimately, the RQT framework is intended to inform the emergent regulatory landscape for quantum technology. The authors provide an outlook on how regulatory interventions can be designed and contextualized to be effective without stifling innovation. By tailoring governance to the exceptional nature of quantum, the goal is to reduce the risk of unintended, counterproductive policy effects and to foster a thriving, responsible, and values-based quantum ecosystem. The paper concludes with a call to action for the research community and other stakeholders to build upon this foundational work, to further develop the guiding principles, and to translate them into the best practices that will define the quantum future.

Meer lezen

Stanford Light Opera Company: Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus

In February 2023, Stanford law scholar Mauritz Kop stepped off the page and into the orchestra pit, joining the Stanford Light Opera Company (SLOCo) for its winter production of Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus. He played clarinet—A and B-flat—substage with the company's orchestra across four performances at Dinkelspiel Auditorium. For a researcher whose work increasingly concerns the rights of performers and composers in the age of artificial intelligence, the view from below the stage was more than a hobby; it was a vantage point.

A student company's feminist Strauss

SLOCo's staging, directed by Nicolle Hendzel '23 in an English translation by Marcie Stapp, reimagined a ballroom farce as a deliberately feminist work, placing the characters who orchestrate the plot's great prank—and who hold power within it—in the hands of its women. The company is a student-run organization with roots in the Stanford Savoyards, a Gilbert and Sullivan society founded in 1973 and rebranded as SLOCo in 2016. The operetta itself dates to 1874, when it premiered at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna; nearly a century and a half later, a student orchestra gave it a contemporary edge.

Where music meets the law of AI

Kop is a Stanford Law School fellow and a practicing classical musician on piano and clarinet, and the two roles inform one another. His scholarship on copyright, authorship, and the public domain carries the weight of someone who has sat among the performers the law is meant to protect. That sensibility runs through his analysis of cloned voices and machine-generated compositions, where familiar copyright questions—who is the author, who is paid, and what enters the public domain—have been made newly pressing by generative systems. A scholar who has taught music law at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague has good reason to keep one foot in live performance.

Why the arts belong in technology-law writing

Technology law has a tendency to treat the arts as something to be regulated rather than understood. An evening in a student orchestra reverses that order. The discipline of a rehearsed part delivered in real time, the collective labor of an ensemble, and the precarious economics of a production staged for love rather than profit are precisely what the law of music exists to serve. As AI begins to imitate the performer's craft at scale, the argument for a creator-aware approach to authorship and remuneration only sharpens—an argument that runs throughout Kop's scholarship on responsible technology across law, music, and policy. The clarinet, on this telling, is not a distraction from the research—it is a reminder of whom the research is for.

Meer lezen

Entertainment en Kunst, AcademicsMauritz Kop6 februari 2023Mauritz Kop, Music, Music Law, Stanford, Stanford Light Opera Company, Die Fledermaus, Johann Strauss, Opera, Clarinet

Quantum Days Canada: CCA Panel on Quantum Technologies

When the Council of Canadian Academies brought its quantum expert panel to Quantum Days in January 2023, it did something unusual for a national academy: it opened an unfinished study to public input. Mauritz Kop joined the session to frame the ethical, legal, social, and policy stakes of quantum adoption—and to invite the audience to help shape the questions, not just receive the answers.

A government-commissioned panel, in public

The panel had been formed at the request of federal sponsors, including the National Research Council of Canada and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and was chaired by the physicist Raymond Laflamme. The Quantum Days appearance gathered members of that panel—Laflamme, Jeff Kinder, Mauritz Kop, and Jacqueline Bartlett among the named participants—to discuss the panel's mandate, key questions, and priorities while its assessment of Canadian quantum adoption was still being written. It was a national study opened up mid-draft, with its conclusions deliberately still open.

Live polls and equitable access

The session's signature move was procedural: the audience was invited to feed the eventual report through live polls, under the banner of helping Canada build a quantum ecosystem. That design choice carries an argument. Responsible quantum governance, on Kop's reading, treats equitable access to quantum-enabled prosperity as a question to be settled by deliberation rather than left to the market, and asks how codes of conduct and design guidelines can be agreed across cultures whose ethical intuitions differ. Live audience input is well suited to surfacing exactly the trade-offs that have no single technically correct answer—and it reflects the distributive themes that run through Kop's broader scholarship on responsible technology.

Why the policy lens belongs at a physics conference

Quantum systems invite governance because their behavior is genuinely unfamiliar. Superposition and entanglement change what computation can do, with consequences for cryptography and security that existing law did not anticipate. The case for an ethical, legal, social, and policy lens at a technical conference is that the rules must be drafted while the science is still moving—a position consistent with the standards-and-principles direction Kop and colleagues set out in the Ten Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation.

A panel on its way to a report

The Quantum Days session is one step in a longer process. The same panel, under the same chair, is carrying its study through 2023 toward a national assessment of quantum adoption in Canada, with Kop among its members. The sequence—open the questions in public, gather input through live polls, then translate that deliberation into evidence for decision-makers—offers a working model of quantum governance that is both expert-led and publicly grounded, an early example of treating quantum policy as a question worked out in the open rather than a finished product to be announced. (That study became the CCA's Quantum Potential report, published November 30, 2023.)

Meer lezen

Quantum Technology, Conference, PolicyMauritz Kop18 januari 2023Mauritz Kop, Quantum Governance, Policy, Conference, Governance, Quantum-ELSPI, Council of Canadian Academies, Canada, Raymond Laflamme, Quantum Days, Responsible Quantum Technology

CQ Researcher Interviews Mauritz Kop on Regulating Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing

In late 2022, journalist Sarah Glazer interviewed Mauritz Kop—Founder of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology (Stanford RQT)—for a CQ Researcher report, The Future of Artificial Intelligence — Can it be successfully regulated?, published under the lineage of Congressional Quarterly. Her questions ranged across the whole governance agenda: the regulatory gaps for artificial intelligence in the United States and Europe, the reach of the EU AI Act, the timing and skepticism around quantum computing, China and defense, and whether a machine could ever be sentient. Kop's written responses offer a compact statement of his position just before the field's law caught up with its technology.

The diagnosis: rules without teeth

Kop's opening line to Glazer was unsparing: "On both sides of the Atlantic, AI regulation is virtually nonexistent at the moment." The EU Artificial Intelligence Act, he explained, would change that—and not only in Europe. Because it is a Regulation rather than a Directive, it binds all Member States directly; and through the Brussels effect it sets a de facto global standard, exporting a risk-tiered, conformity-and-certification approach to AI well beyond the EU's borders.

Quantum is not "twenty years away"

The interview's sharpest thread was Kop's rebuttal to the familiar claim that quantum computing is perpetually two decades off. The framing, he argued, confuses engineering milestones with physical reality. Adversaries can harvest encrypted data now and decrypt it later once a capable machine exists, so the migration clock is already running. The physics is unforgiving: because qubits exploit superposition and entanglement, a quantum register explores an exponentially large state space, and an algorithm like Shor's turns that into the ability to break the assumptions behind today's public-key encryption. The argument echoes the warning in the Foreign Policy op-ed that drew Glazer to him in the first place.

Govern the systems we have

On machine sentience, Kop kept capability and consciousness apart: quantum effects make hard computations tractable, but they do not manufacture an inner life, and nothing in the physics confers rights on a model. The serious work is to govern the AI and quantum systems already in deployment—an interdisciplinary, standards-first program Kop has carried into venues from the U.S. Senate to his scholar profile. Read in 2026, after the EU AI Act's adoption and NIST's finalization of its first three post-quantum cryptography standards, the 2022 conversation looks less like commentary than like an early reading of developments now settled in law.

Meer lezen

Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, PolicyMauritz Kop25 november 2022Mauritz Kop, AI, Regulation, Policy, Quantum Governance, Stanford RQT, CQ Researcher, Congressional Quarterly, EU AI Act, Sarah Glazer, Brussels Effect, Post-Quantum Cryptography

Mauritz Kop Advises Yale Law School's Lowenstein Human Rights Project on Quantum Technology and Human Rights

In November 2022, the Lowenstein Project at Yale Law School—the student-led human rights group founded in 1981 under the Schell Center for International Human Rights—reached out to Mauritz Kop for his expertise on quantum technology and human rights. The team was working on a background policy memorandum, in association with the Seoul National University Artificial Intelligence Policy Initiative and the Korean Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, to support a proposed new U.N. Special Rapporteurship on human rights in the development of new technologies. Their question was practical and revealing: how does a layperson "get smart" on quantum?

Lawyers seeking to make a hard field legible

The outreach was, in the project's own words, "primarily focused on the research process, especially from a lay perspective." The questions concerned method, not conclusions—where to begin, how to sequence the material, which kinds of technical understanding human rights applications actually require, and whom else to consult. Kop shared his insights into that process. He did not draft the memorandum and the engagement should not be overstated: it was a scholar helping advocates reach the threshold of understanding from which rights questions can be posed precisely rather than rhetorically.

Why the physics has to come first

Quantum is harder to make legible than artificial intelligence or social media, and easy to discuss in metaphors that mislead. Getting smart on it means grasping superposition, entanglement, and measurement—features with no classical analogue—well enough that rights claims become testable rather than atmospheric. A concrete worry about a future quantum computer breaking today's public-key encryption is a disciplined claim; generalized anxiety about "quantum" doing something powerful and unspecified is not. The difference is exactly what a layperson must cross to draft credible norms.

Quantum literacy as a precondition for rights protection

The episode is small but structural. The U.N. human rights system can only fashion meaningful safeguards for a technology its drafters understand; an instrument written from metaphor risks protecting the wrong things, or nothing. That is why responsible quantum governance has to be interdisciplinary from the start, with lawyers, ethicists, and physicists working together—a case Kop and colleagues have made across the responsible-quantum-technology literature, including the Ten Principles for Responsible Quantum Innovation. The Lowenstein outreach is that argument running in reverse: advocates recognizing that they had to learn the technology before they could protect against it.

A small request, a durable lesson

To be precise about the record: Kop answered the project's research-process questions; he was not an author of the memorandum, and whether a new Special Rapporteurship is ultimately established is a matter for the Human Rights Council. The durable point is narrower and more interesting—that human rights advocates building a case at the United Nations turned to a quantum scholar to make the field legible first. Quantum literacy is becoming a precondition for rights-protective governance, not an optional supplement to it.

Meer lezen

Fundamental Rights, Quantum Technology, GovernanceMauritz Kop22 november 2022Mauritz Kop, Quantum Governance, Human Rights, Policy, Governance, Stanford RQT, Yale Law School, Lowenstein Project, United Nations, Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur, Quantum Literacy

Mauritz Kop Speaks on Quantum Ethics, Intellectual Property and Innovation at NASA SWEEEP Event

On October 3, 2022, a interdisciplinary dialogue on the future of quantum technology and its societal implications took place within a consortium focused on some of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time. Mauritz Kop, a visiting quantum and law scholar at Stanford University, was invited to address a workshop for the SouthWest Engine for Environment and Economic Prosperity (SWEEEP), a major initiative led by a consortium including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), CalTech, and California State University, Northridge. The event, part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines program, provided a platform to discuss the intricate web of ethical, legal, socio-economic, and policy implications—termed "Quantum-ELSPI"—that must be navigated as quantum technologies are harnessed to address grand challenges like water scarcity and agricultural sustainability.

The Institutional Context: NASA and the SWEEEP Mission

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), established in 1958, has a storied history of pushing the boundaries of science and technology for the benefit of humanity. While renowned for space exploration, its mission extends deeply into Earth science, utilizing its unique vantage point from space to understand and protect our home planet. From monitoring climate change and weather patterns to managing natural resources, NASA’s work is foundational to global environmental stewardship.

This commitment to terrestrial challenges is exemplified by its involvement in the SWEEEP initiative. SWEEEP is a direct response to the NSF Regional Innovation Engines program, a nationwide effort to catalyze and accelerate regional-scale, R&D-based innovation ecosystems. The program is designed to fund "Engines" that advance critical technologies, address societal challenges, promote economic growth, and cultivate regional talent, with potential funding of up to $160 million over ten years per Engine.

It was within this context of ambitious technological solution-building that Mauritz Kop was invited to provide a crucial perspective on governance and responsible innovation. The leaders of the initiative, including Edward Chow of NASA JPL and Bingbing Li of California State University Northridge, recognized that developing powerful new technologies carries a responsibility to proactively address their societal impact.

Quantum-ELSPI: A Framework for Responsible Innovation

In his address, Mauritz Kop introduced the comprehensive concept of Quantum-ELSPI, arguing for a multidisciplinary approach that integrates ethical, legal, socio-economic, and policy considerations directly into the R&D lifecycle. He stressed the importance of "building bridges between disciplines," enabling quantum physicists and engineers to communicate effectively with experts in the humanities and social sciences. The goal is not to give premature, all-encompassing answers, but to begin by asking the right questions.

For a project like SWEEEP, this means looking beyond the technical specifications of a quantum sensor to consider the legal frameworks for the data it collects, the ethical implications of its use in agriculture, and the socio-economic impact on farming communities. Kop noted that NSF reviewers would likely value such a forward-thinking awareness of the complex societal dimensions of the proposed technological interventions.

Intellectual Property in the Quantum Age: Fostering or Hindering Innovation?

A significant portion of the discussion was dedicated to the role of intellectual property (IP) in the quantum domain. Quantum computers and related systems are extraordinarily complex, comprising myriad components, each potentially protected by its own IP right. Kop described this as a "rainbow of IP rights," where patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademarks can create a dense and overlapping landscape.

While IP is designed to incentivize invention, he cautioned that an over-reliance on exclusive rights could lead to "IP overprotection," potentially stifling the cumulative, follow-on innovation that is essential for a burgeoning field like quantum technology. The challenge is to balance the need to protect inventions with the goal of building an open, thriving global quantum ecosystem.

Meer lezen

Why Quantum Computing Is Even More Dangerous Than Artificial Intelligence (Foreign Policy)

Washington DC, August 21, 2022. Foreign Policy just published an article about regulating quantum technology authored by Vivek Wadhwa and Mauritz Kop. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/21/quantum-computing-artificial-intelligence-ai-technology-regulation/

United States and other democratic nations must prepare for tomorrow's quantum era today

To avoid the ethical problems that went so horribly wrong with AI and machine learning, democratic nations need to institute controls that both correspond to the predicted power of the emerging suite of second generation quantum technologies, and respect & reinforce democratic values, human rights, and fundamental freedoms. In fact, the quantum community itself has issued a call for action to immediately address these matters. We argue that governments must urgently begin to think about regulation, standards, and responsible use—and learn from the way countries handled or mishandled other revolutionary technologies, including AI, nanotechnology, biotechnology, semiconductors, and nuclear fission. Benefits and increased quantum driven prosperity should be equitably shared among members of society, and risks equally distributed. The United States and other democratic nations must not make the same mistake they made with AI—and prepare for tomorrow's quantum era today.

Meer lezen

Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Geopolitics, Foreign Policy, GuardrailsMauritz Kop21 augustus 2022Quantum Governance, AI-Regulation, geopolitics

Mauritz Kop Presents Oxford JIPLP Article on Quantum Computing, IP and Market Power at IPSC 2022, Stanford Law School

IPSC 2022 at Stanford: at the first in-person Intellectual Property Scholars Conference after two virtual years (August 11–12, 2022), Mauritz Kop presented his Oxford JIPLP article Intellectual property in quantum computing and market power: a theoretical discussion and empirical analysis, co-authored with Mateo Aboy and Timo Minssen.

When IP stops doing its job

The theory: intellectual property exists to incentivize innovation, but excessive proliferation of exclusive rights over a foundational technology produces anticommons effects — overlapping thickets that raise transaction costs, deter follow-on research and concentrate first-mover market power. Quantum computing, built on decades of publicly funded science, is exactly where that risk bites hardest.

The patent data behind the argument

The empirics: the article analyzes the quantum-computing patent landscape — who files, where portfolios cluster, and what that implies for market structure in a field whose hardware, algorithms and error-correction methods may all carry exclusive rights. Theory says when proliferation harms innovation; the data say where quantum technology stands today.

A transatlantic collaboration, a Stanford homecoming

Kop, Aboy and Minssen connect European and American IP scholarship on quantum computing; for Kop the venue completed a circle, having spent early 2022 as visiting scholar at Stanford Law School. The presentation put the market-power findings before the scholars best placed to attack the methodology — which is what the IPSC works-in-progress format exists to do. And after two virtual editions, the 22nd IPSC's return to a physical Stanford conference room restored the corridor conversations that turn a panel question into a coauthorship.

Standards: the other half of ownership

Beyond patents, quantum interoperability standards will run on disclosure and licensing commitments from the very portfolio holders the article tracks. Whether those commitments are negotiated early, FRAND-style, or after positions harden will shape access to the technology as surely as any patent dispute — and the article's empirical map is groundwork for getting that negotiation right.

Third station of a research arc

From AI's data inputs (IPSC 2020) via waive-or-pledge quantum IP (IPSC 2021) to ownership structure and market power (2022): the sequence tracks a research line moving from machine learning's raw material to quantum computing's ownership structure, each stage workshopped in public before publication. That line later grew into an institutional one — see Stanford University launches the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology. If early patent concentration hardens into durable market power, access to the field's foundational capabilities narrows before the technology matures; making that risk empirically discussable, rather than rhetorical, is the article's lasting contribution.

Meer lezen

Intellectual Property, Academics, ConferenceHenry Quentir12 augustus 2022IPSC, Stanford Law School, quantum computing, intellectual property, market power, JIPLP

Intellectual Property in Quantum Computing and Market Power: A Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Analysis (Oxford University Press)

Delighted to see our article ‘Intellectual Property in Quantum Computing and Market Power: A Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Analysis’ -co-authored with my talented friends Prof. Mateo Aboy, PhD, SJD, FIT and Prof. Timo Minssen- published in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (Oxford University Press), the flagship IP peer-reviewed OUP Journal, edited by Prof. Eleonora Rosati. Thanks to the JIPLP team for excellent editorial support! Our article: https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/article/17/8/613/6646536

This piece is the sisterpaper of our Max Planck @ Springer Nature published article titled ‘Mapping the Patent Landscape of Quantum Technologies: Patenting Trends, Innovation and Policy Implications’, which we wrote in parallel. The IIC quantum-patent study can be found here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40319-022-01209-3. Our teamwork was absolutely gratifying and we hope it will inform strategic, evidence based transatlantic policy making.

IP and Antitrust Law

Please find a short synopsis of our work below:

We are on the verge of a technological revolution associated with quantum technologies, including quantum computing and quantum/artificial intelligence hybrids. Its complexity and global significance are creating potential innovation distortions, which could not have been foreseen when current IP and antitrust systems where developed.

Potential IP Overprotection

Using quantitative methods, we investigated our hypothesis that IP overprotection requires a reform of existing IP regimes for quantum tech, to avoid or repair IP thickets, fragmented exclusionary rights and anticommons concerns, lost opportunity costs, and an unwanted concentration of market power.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, we found that there appear to be (at least so far) no such overprotection problems in the real-world quantum computing field to the extent that their consequences would hinder exponential innovation in this specific branch of applied quantum technology, as more and more quantum patent information enters the public domain.

Patents versus Trade Secrets and State Secrets

However, developments taking place in secrecy, either by trade secrets or state secrets, remains the Achilles heel of our empirical approach, as information about these innovations is not represented by our dataset, and thus cannot be observed, replicated or generalized.

Interplay between IP and Antitrust Law: Open or Closed Innovation Systems

Policy makers should urgently answer questions regarding pushing for open or closed innovation systems including the interplay between IP and antitrust law, taking into account dilemma’s pertaining to equal/equitable access to benefits, risk control, ethics, and overall societal impact. Crucially, intellectual property in quantum technology has a national safety and (cyber)security dimension, often beyond the IP toolkit.

Meer lezen

Artificial Intelligence, Data processing, Intellectual Property, Antitrust, Competition Law, Empirical researchMauritz Kop19 juli 2022AI, Intellectueel Eigendom, Data, Antitrust, fair competition

Morning Brew and Dark Reading Interview Mauritz Kop on Quantum Ethics and the EU AI Act

Within the same fortnight in June 2022, two technology outlets sought out Mauritz Kop on the two governance questions that run through his scholarship: the ethics of quantum computing, and Europe's proposed AI Act. Emerging Tech Brew, Morning Brew's technology vertical, featured him in "As quantum computing advances, who's thinking about ethics?"; Dark Reading featured him in "EU Debates AI Act to Protect Human Rights, Define High-Risk Uses." In both, Kop is identified as a Transatlantic Technology Law Forum fellow at Stanford University and a strategic intellectual property lawyer at AIRecht.

Quantum ethics: act before the technology locks in

To Emerging Tech Brew, Kop's central message was about timing. "We were obviously too late for AI, and now, [for quantum computing], we still have the chance to be in time before the technology gets locked in," he said—invoking the Collingridge dilemma, in which a technology is easiest to steer precisely when its risks are hardest to see. The urgency is rooted in physics: superposition and entanglement give quantum machines a categorically different kind of power, including the eventual ability to break the public-key cryptography that protects today's communications—one reason the World Economic Forum's quantum governance principles name "non-maleficence" as a core value. Kop paired a call for transparency about present capability with a warning about a "Pandora's Box of unknown risks," and likened the field's duty of care to the Hippocratic Oath—"in this case, our society is the patient."

The EU AI Act: a product-safety regime for AI

To Dark Reading, Kop framed the EU AI Act as a product-safety regime that closes the gaps left by an otherwise unregulated field. "The risks are too high for nonbinding self-regulation by companies alone," he said, describing the act as "a human centric legal-ethical framework that intends to safeguard and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms from violations of these rights and freedoms by algorithms and smart machines." High-risk classification, he explained, scales obligations to danger—stricter rules for AI in healthcare and defense than for AI in tourism—through a dynamic, evolving list.

One conviction, two technologies

Both interviews express a single idea: that governance works best when embedded early, by design, and grounded in human rights rather than retrofitted after harm. Kop did not minimize the compliance burden on startups, nor the legal uncertainty that surrounds early regulation; his answer is "Trustworthy AI by Design," built in from the first line of code, and regulatory sandboxes that give responsible innovation room to breathe. More on the author's work is available via his scholar profile.

Meer lezen

Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Quantum TechnologyMauritz Kop21 juni 2022Mauritz Kop, Ethics, AI, Regulation, Policy, Human Rights, Quantum Governance, EU AI Act, Quantum Ethics, Morning Brew, Dark Reading, Collingridge dilemma, High-Risk AI, Product Safety

Mauritz Kop calls for a Quantum Governance Act at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law

Much enjoyed giving a lecture titled ‘Quantum-ELSPI: A Call for a Quantum Governance Act’ on Thursday June 9, 2022 at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law. This was an internal CeBiL event that took place before The Quantum Future symposium, organized by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and its newly established Committee for Quantum Information and Quantum Computing, together with the Niels Bohr Institute’s Quantum Life Centre.

EU Quantum Governance Act

With its own Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics in which physical phenomena must be observed and measured to exist, the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law was the perfect place to propose an outline for a novel Quantum Governance Act on a European level, fostering open innovation while putting targeted, technology and industry specific risk based controls in place. The EU Quantum Act should jointly optimize advancing quantum technology (investment and innovation) with safeguaring quantum technology, society and humankind (guardrails, standards, values, IP protection and national security). For example, it could contain a product safety regime as found in the EU AI Act, combined with pro-innovation mechanisms as found in the US CHIPS Act. In addition, I connected regulating quantum to regulating general purpose technologies (GPT) like artificial intelligence (AI), but also to nanotechnology, biotechnology, semiconductors, and last not least to managing dual use fissionable materials such as nuclear isotopes and nuclear weapons, utilizing export and intellectual property controls.

The Law of Quantum: Quantum Regulatory Frameworks

The Quantum & Law lecture gave an overview of work done over the past 3 years on quantum regulatory frameworks, incentive and rewards systems, competition law, beyond intellectual property innovation law, ethics, national security policy, standardization, technology impact assessment, benchmarking and certification published or forthcoming in high impact journals at both sides of the Atlantic. My talk ended with discussing the latest research findings pertaining to the Law of Quantum, and Quantum-ELSPI academic disciplines. Thanks to the participants for their inspiring questions and comments!

Panel Debate about the Quantum Future at the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences

The brilliant lectures on atoms, photons, qubits, the nature of quantum information, the history of quantum physics, and current research into quantum computer paradigms -including combatting decoherence on both software and hardware levels- at The Quantum Future symposium where highly enjoyable. This fascinating program ended with a panel debate on how quantum technology will change our society, at the beautiful building of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, in attendance of fellow jurists Nicholson Price II, Louise C. Druedahl, Marcelo Corrales Compagnucci, and Agnieszka Radziwon.

Surfing the Waves of the Second Quantum Revolution

The panel debate at the Academy -superbly moderated by Nanna Bonde Thylstrup- gave a true, almost symptomatic picture of the various stakeholders' viewpoints and positions. But we are learning to speak each other's language better and better, a crucial and exciting step when it comes to balancing the societal impact of our mystical family of quantum technologies. Surfing the waves of the second quantum revolution requires building bridges between disciplines, beyond traditional research silos. Bringing together the humanities, social and natural sciences to spur sustainable innovation driven by a golden triangle of academia, government and industry is essential.

Thank you to Professor Timo Minssen and his team at CeBiL for the kind invite. https://jura.ku.dk/cebil/

Meer lezen

Mauritz Kop joins Expert Panel on Quantum Technologies of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA)

Mauritz Kop joins the multidisciplinary Expert Panel on Quantum Technologies of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) over 2022-2023, chaired by Professor Raymond Laflamme. In November 2023, The Expert Panel on the Responsible Adoption of Quantum Technologies published their final report titled Quantum Potential. https://cca-reports.ca/reports/quantum-technologies/

The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) Investigates Future Impact of Quantum Technologies

As Chair, Dr. Raymond Laflamme will lead a multidisciplinary group with expertise in quantum technologies, economics, innovation, ethics, and legal and regulatory frameworks. The Panel will answer the following question:

In light of current trends affecting the evolution of quantum technologies, what opportunities and challenges do these present in Canada?

The Quantum Potential Report

Quantum technologies are poised to play a major role in Canada’s future, from its national security to its economic standing. While Canada is among the global leaders in quantum research, it nevertheless faces challenges in the adoption of these technologies as they approach market readiness. Quantum Potential, a new expert panel report from the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA), outlines a responsible approach to quantum-technology adoption — a critical step toward ensuring Canada’s global competitiveness in the decades ahead.

Quantum Computing, Sensing, and Communications

Quantum Potential considers quantum computing, sensing, and communications, three categories of quantum technology at varying levels of maturity. While these technologies may strengthen digital infrastructure, improve data security, and optimize processes across a range of economic sectors, they also pose significant risks, such as misuse by malicious actors. Risks associated with quantum technologies span ethical, legal, social, and policy realms; without sufficient consideration, they may compromise public trust in quantum technologies, limit research funding, and stifle innovation.

The Commercialization Potential of Quantum Technologies in Canada

Quantum Potential explores the commercialization potential of quantum technologies, articulates Canada’s position within the global quantum value chain, and examines those conditions and policy levers that might promote their responsible adoption. https://cca-reports.ca/reports/quantum-technologies/

Quantum technologies offer opportunities to harness the properties of quantum mechanics for a breadth of applications, many of them novel. Though many quantum technologies are several years away from reaching market, it is believed that they have the potential to revolutionize many industries as they reach widespread commercial availability. Domestic industries will need to adopt these technologies if they wish to remain globally competitive, as will governments hoping to ensure national and economic security, public safety, and the integrity of critical infrastructure. To date, Canada has made noteworthy investments in the research and development of quantum technologies but has focused less on mechanisms to stimulate their diffusion and adoption.

Ethical, Legal, Social, and Policy Implications (Quantum-ELSPI)

The adoption of quantum technologies also carries significant ethical, legal, social, and policy implications. These include potential threats to data security and digital infrastructure, anticompetitive pressures by market-dominant firms, mass surveillance and privacy loss, regulatory uncertainty, inequitable access to technology, and social challenges related to employment and public trust in science. However, there are many strategies that could help address these challenges and stimulate the responsible adoption of quantum technologies. These include public-private co-operation, pro-competition oversight and policies, industry-led initiatives, and the creation of a diverse quantum workforce. In order to maximize the benefits of quantum technologies while mitigating potential risks, responsible approaches to adoption should use state-sanctioned and self-regulating measures – including quantum impact assessments, soft-law mechanisms, and consultations with stakeholders – to anticipate the effects of technological change.

Thanks to the sponsors National Research Council Canada and Innovation; Science and Economic Development Canada for facilitating this Report.

Meer lezen

Quantum Technology, Quantum ELSPI, Quantum ComputingMauritz Kop26 mei 2022responsible quantum technology, Canada, Mauritz Kop, strategy, policy, law, ethics, regulation, Raymond Laflamme, Intellectual Property Law, Governance, innovation, fair competition

Blog over Kunstmatige Intelligentie, Quantum, Deep Learning, Blockchain en Big Data Law

A Transatlantic Constellation of Scholars

The RQT Framework: Integrating Quantum-ELSPI and RRI

Operationalizing Responsible Quantum Technology: The 10 Principles and Future Regulation

A student company's feminist Strauss

Where music meets the law of AI

Why the arts belong in technology-law writing

A government-commissioned panel, in public

Live polls and equitable access

Why the policy lens belongs at a physics conference

A panel on its way to a report

The diagnosis: rules without teeth

Quantum is not "twenty years away"

Govern the systems we have

Lawyers seeking to make a hard field legible

Why the physics has to come first

Quantum literacy as a precondition for rights protection

A small request, a durable lesson

The Institutional Context: NASA and the SWEEEP Mission

Quantum-ELSPI: A Framework for Responsible Innovation

Intellectual Property in the Quantum Age: Fostering or Hindering Innovation?

United States and other democratic nations must prepare for tomorrow's quantum era today

When IP stops doing its job

The patent data behind the argument

A transatlantic collaboration, a Stanford homecoming

Standards: the other half of ownership

Third station of a research arc

IP and Antitrust Law

Potential IP Overprotection

Patents versus Trade Secrets and State Secrets

Interplay between IP and Antitrust Law: Open or Closed Innovation Systems

Quantum ethics: act before the technology locks in

The EU AI Act: a product-safety regime for AI

One conviction, two technologies

EU Quantum Governance Act

The Law of Quantum: Quantum Regulatory Frameworks

Panel Debate about the Quantum Future at the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences

Surfing the Waves of the Second Quantum Revolution

The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) Investigates Future Impact of Quantum Technologies

The Quantum Potential Report

Quantum Computing, Sensing, and Communications

The Commercialization Potential of Quantum Technologies in Canada

Ethical, Legal, Social, and Policy Implications (Quantum-ELSPI)

Juridische diensten en projecten in Nederland en daarbuiten