#882 Quantum Computing

Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: 200 seconds versus 10,000 years — what does that gap between a quantum computer and a classical supercomputer actually mean for the rest of us? In Room #882 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme “Pioneering Spirit with brAIn,” the group digs into Max Planck’s leap-not-linear discovery, why old crypto systems could become obsolete, borrowable quantum computers already in use by carmakers, and the hidden risk inside a microchip nobody fully understands. Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…

Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.

A wonderful good morning to you. Today we’re continuing with the topic of quantum computing. What actually is it, and what effects does quantum computing have, both on technology and on other industries? That’s the question we want to look into today, under our umbrella theme Pioneering Spirit with Brain. And accordingly, you’re all invited to join in again today too, and get into the exchange. Just a quick reminder again, the room gets recorded for the entire time. Anyone who joins automatically agrees that the recording will be published afterward too. And then we have three small room rules to follow — a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. Anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason can gladly use the chat too, to bring in thoughts, questions, contributions. And I’ll gladly pick that up along the way too, if it fits well or hasn’t been picked up yet. And yes, first I’ve brought a definition too, as an impulse to start with. “Quantum computing is a rapidly growing technology that uses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that are too complex for classical computers.” That’s from IBM. And a continuation of that — “the computing power of such devices isn’t linear, but doubles with each additional qubit. So with two qubits you’d have four, with three already eight possible combinations. What’s decisive, though, isn’t just the quantity of qubits, but especially their quality, meaning the entanglement of the qubits and the coherence time the quantum system remains stable enough to compute, otherwise the information gets lost in noise” — and that’s from the Fraunhofer Institute. Right, and with that we want to get started together and see what this is actually about. Maybe you’ve already had some experience with it in one place or another. Access is still somewhat limited, so to speak — it’s not available to the broad masses anywhere yet — but still, against the backdrop of various affiliations, maybe projects or similar, maybe you’ve not just followed this, maybe read something somewhere, a report, a documentary or similar, or been involved in projects or similar, so that we can look at to what extent we have the option to bring together certain information in this exchange, and reflect on this together against this backdrop, and then sort our thoughts and generate new insights in this exchange too. So, with that, I’m curious who’d like to join this morning and open up the round with me, and then we’ll see which direction the room develops in today. Marc, a wonderful good morning. What do you say about this?

Good morning to the round. To all questions, no, and I wish you a wonderful day. I’ve engaged with this topic — this topic has never touched me, and it won’t be relevant for my company or for me either. As far as I know, quantum technology is used, well, we had the word big data yesterday, to analyze large amounts of data. And I approached the topic differently — and here’s a shoutout to my math teacher. If I’d told him back then that I’d get up on stage to say something about quantum technology, he probably would’ve laughed out loud. Not much has changed about that. But what I do find fascinating, and I’d like to share this with you — Google presented a quantum computer for the first time in 2019. And to give you an idea of what that means, just to let it sink in — this computer supposedly solved a task, which I don’t know exactly, in 200 seconds, while the most advanced supercomputers we had back then, in 2019, would supposedly have needed 10,000 years. So 200 seconds to solve a task versus 10,000 years with a supercomputer. And then, of course, a lot of time has passed since 2019, and you find reports that China now supposedly has a supercomputer — I can’t pronounce it properly, Jiuzhang — and that’s supposed to be ten billion times faster, ten billion times, I can’t even write that number correctly without looking it up, ten billion times faster than the Google computer. So what does that tell me? It just tells me a new technology is rolling toward us, which won’t be relevant for my company, because I simply don’t have these huge amounts of data, but I know that whoever masters this technology, that’ll become a new economic sector, and that touches me at least indirectly, because this technology will have an impact on our economy, on a lot of things, probably on military development too, and so on, so that I actually don’t want to, and won’t, understand how this technology works, but I still engage with it, because I know, and this shows again, whoever engages with the technology — and that’s largely, I think Germany too, but Russia and China. And China seems to already be quite far ahead there, like with a lot of other technologies. And indirectly that has something to do with me after all — whoever masters the technology of the future, that country will probably also be able to live with good prosperity in the future.

Yes, really exciting numbers you brought in there. Thank you, thank you so much for that. It shows, on one hand, as it’s also included in the definition, that it’s about speed. Especially with the numbers you brought in, the scale of it becomes clear too, I think — that it’s not just a bit about speed, but clearly about more, because we get a feel for it through these comparisons. And on the other hand it’s about this complexity. It was in the definition too, that it’s not just linear, but about complex tasks that can get solved here. And of course the question arises, what kind of tasks might these actually be? What kind of complexity? What’s concretely meant when we say it’s not just about pure speed? And that’s certainly interesting to look at too. Do you know, Marc, what kind of tasks got solved there, or do you have examples of that?

No, I don’t have any examples for that, and couldn’t understand anything, absolutely nothing, about that field. I just know that, as you said, we had big data yesterday, and that with this technology it’s possible to recognize patterns, even in a flood of data, that other computers simply can’t recognize. And I approached the topic more from the angle of, well, I don’t understand the technology, but who needs it? And then it became clear to me — where does a lot of data accumulate, for example, if we input natural simulations, to what extent the climate is changing our Earth and so on, in engineering sciences, and in artificial intelligence — that this technology will probably get applied there, without me being able to explain how it works.

Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. I think those are already important starting points. Ultimately it’s about recognizing patterns in data collections relatively quickly, so to speak, as you already said, for example. And here too, at high speed, in inverted commas, based on this pattern recognition and so on, to present certain solutions, suggest them, or similar. And simulations, you brought that in too, so calculating forecasts, for example, and thereby again presenting derived suggestions, solution approaches, and so on. So there are quite a few possibilities you can open up here too. And I’m really curious whether there are further points of contact too. So that’s one thing, to pick up further examples too — I’m sure, similar to Marc, that there are others in the room who can contribute with various aspects too. And then we can put the pieces together like puzzle pieces, so to speak, and look at it. And the other thing is of course always this, in inverted commas, do we even need this? So what’s the whole thing actually good for? You said, for example, that you tend to not need this for your company. For me the question is a bit, is this maybe something we might all initially assume for ourselves? Or do we maybe not yet recognize certain connections, which lead us to say, do we even need this? Question mark. And I’m curious what Jürgen has to say about this topic too. A wonderful good morning, dear Jürgen.

Good morning, dear Yasemin, good morning Marc and everyone in the room. Well, what Jürgen has to say about that — he offers a confession of failure, because, after my phase of trying to understand the theory of relativity, and then at some point coming to the realization, well, I’ve somewhat grasped it now, I turned to quantum mechanics fully motivated, and right now I’m a bit hopeless, I have to say, about ever reaching that same state of, well, I’ve somewhat grasped it now. So my reverence for this topic, and also for you tackling it, in connection with quantum computing. And let me try to reconnect this to our overarching theme, pioneering spirits. If you try, a bit on the surface, to go deeper, what this is actually about, you find that it’s about the field of the smallest, no longer divisible particles — atoms and molecules. Fields, and this maybe explains a few things too, fields we mere mortals can’t even perceive with our eyes. So for me it’s a second world. There’s a world I can observe, where I can determine movements and clearly pinpoint a particle — it’s at this location. That, and I’m just repeating this, don’t ask me why, that’s not the case in the molecular realm. It’s one of the essential insights that elementary particles, photons too, in their property as both wave and particle, can’t be clearly determined in terms of where they are, or at what speed they’re moving. You just have to accept that for now. But back to the roots — what I actually wanted to connect to pioneering spirits is, at some point people must have come across this and started engaging with it. And there was a really concrete occasion, in Max Planck’s lab, where he found that temperatures don’t spread linearly, but in jumps. And that put his entire theoretical framework of physics into question, for him. He wanted to discard it, but then got stuck on it, pioneering spirits, got hooked, because he couldn’t explain it. Curiosity, exclamation mark. So, and then, and this is what I’ll take away for myself as a point of understanding, what makes quantum mechanics so extraordinary, and dear Marc, why it has a future for me too. Some even claim that quantum mechanics will change our humanity more than fire did. And these spirits, these pioneers, approached the solution by means of thought experiments. So they didn’t start from given physical conditions, like gravity, mass inertia, basic laws of physics, but created a mental construct, and said, what if we assume that, and analyzed the given theories based on this mental construct, and approached the solution this way, from a fixed premise toward a mental experiment. And that’s something that was extraordinary for people like Heisenberg, like Planck, or like Bohr. And that was, or is, for me the extraordinary thing about this, which is certainly also, this is a guess, being experimented with today at Google, at IBM, in China — namely, that as an innovator, as a pioneering spirit, you simply say, let’s just assume, I’ll get there, I’ll be able to explain it at some point, and set off on the path. That’s what’s exciting about this, for me. Thank you for listening.

Yes, really, really exciting. Thank you, thank you so much. And I have another aspect I’d like to add here too. From this Fraunhofer report I found online, there’s a statement that says, “in a few years, quantum computers will be able to efficiently factor smaller prime numbers. This could become a danger for existing crypto systems.” And you can see, on one hand, curiosity is what drives people to develop certain new technologies, to find answers to certain things, and on the other hand this also creates challenges, at the same time, possibly for other aspects or technologies that are already in use today, in other fields, where you might not think of it at first. And that makes the whole thing even more exciting. And with that I’d like to welcome Ria into the round. A wonderful good morning, dear Ria. What would you like to add to the topic? And then we can gladly make cross-connections too.

A wonderful good morning to you all too. I actually wanted to stay in the background, because I don’t have that much time. But now I’ve spoken up after all, because the question you just asked immediately made me sit up. Namely, is it really true that we don’t need this? And I read up a bit briefly on this, and then something came to mind. I don’t know if you remember the movie “The Fifth Element” — there was a situation where various vehicles, or planes, or cars, floating in the air, flew and drove around a city almost completely wildly, and still nobody crashed into each other. And that’s exactly what car companies, especially, are currently trying to calculate with quantum computers — though not yet at different altitude levels, but the autonomous driving capabilities of vehicles, which are already being considered in a lot of situations. My car, for example, is a Renault, and it already does a lot of things on its own, where I think, okay, where’s that coming from now? Why did it just beep? Until I realized, oh, there was some vehicle near me, and it was too close. I would never have noticed that — my car noticed it. And if vehicles then really get driven around in a structured way, through traffic light systems, satellites, or similar things, these millions or billions of vehicles that exist in the world, structured properly, we’ll need a quantum computer for that. And then, dear Marc, once you have a car like that, you’ll need it too. And I find that totally fascinating, because that’s a completely different way of transporting, and especially the logistics side is already highly problematic today, in terms of computing power. I have a friend who works in that field, and he sometimes spends months puzzling over certain solution options. And what I also found really cool — the quantum computers that exist right now, you can actually borrow them. Even I could send a request to Zurich, ask a question there, and the quantum computer would handle it for me. And that’s mainly being done right now by car companies like Mercedes and BMW, but also especially the Japanese, where I think, aha, they already see the opportunities and possibilities we can’t even see yet, because, well, we’re just glad we can operate our computers. There’s always someone sitting in front of it in Düsseldorf, so to speak. That was my contribution for now. I think I’ll head out relatively quickly again, because I need to and have to go to work. But thank you for this wonderful topic. See you later, bye, ahoy.

Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. Yes, great, and Marc signaled right away. Now I’m curious, Marc, what you have to say.

No, for me every morning here is a learning experience. I didn’t say anything different — I repeat, I said this won’t affect me in my company, and I explained why too, because I don’t have big computation-intensive problems, and no big amounts of data I need to analyze. My 800 to 1000 partners, I can still manage that with the software that exists. But it will touch me in my life, and it will intrude into my life too, and there I completely agree with you, dear Ria. It’ll come in the automotive industry, it’ll come in logistics, and should I invest my money in crypto — coffee, whatever — it’ll be there too, because a big topic we’ll be dealing with are cyberattacks too — cyberattacks will also get better through this quantum technology. And I’ve learned from Yasemin to accept certain topics for myself without understanding them, and what Yasemin just explained with the Fraunhofer Institute, I only read three lines about that yesterday, about the security of cryptocurrency systems, and got to a sentence like, symmetric cryptography and algorithms can fend off attacks. Then I stopped — I understand neither symmetric cryptography nor “fend off,” but I know what that means, what the author means by that — if I’ve invested my money in cryptocurrencies, there could be a danger through quantum technology that maybe the money I have stored somewhere, the system could get cracked, and what I’ve saved might not be worth anything anymore at some point, and that there’ll then be security programs again that might protect me.

Yes, great, thank you, thank you so much, and I find that really exciting — it becomes clear that this is, to some extent, something new for us too, to a certain degree, where we notice we’re kind of hitting our own limits, or the limits of our imagination, and similar. And that’s all the more exciting, especially under this pioneering-spirit umbrella, I actually still find it exciting to pick up on topics like this, tackle them, and try to think your way into them, so to speak, even if we might not have an answer to everything yet, or might not be able to grasp exactly what reach or significance it might have afterward — to pick up on topics like this and look at them, and not just let it pass by, so to speak, but bring this curiosity to it. And there we’re back at this pioneering spirit again, to see what I can

discover here. Aha, exciting, interesting, there are really interesting aspects there. What questions come up? And here too, on a meta-level, to look at what actually happens with me when I process these various aspects, the questions that come up, and so on. So to reflect on this on various levels too, and see what I can actually do with it. Yes, I don’t know if Jürgen wanted to say something else. Jürgen, I’d like to give you the opportunity, and then Marc again gladly.

Yes, thank you very much, dear Yasemin. Thank you too, Ria, for your contribution, because there was a trigger point in there, on the level of when, when a politician says, there’s no alternative. Namely this trigger point, we need this. And Marc already elaborated on this — the “we” really makes me allergic, for me, because it co-opts me, because I see myself included in this “we.” That’s one point, why I usually vehemently disagree with statements like this, just from this co-option alone. And the second thing is “need.” We need this. So I quickly looked into it too, and apparently among the biggest niche users of this technology in the future, they’re seeing, among others, of course chemistry, and accordingly pharmaceuticals too. Though of course you could immediately claim, that’s really something we might not need, but that generates a benefit for us. And there I’m back at the original form of our reptilian brain, and I’ll try to apply this topic to that — which basically distinguishes, in a situation forced upon us, is this something I need to fear, meaning run away from, or not have to, or is it something that generates a benefit for me. And I think, or I believe, that this topic, this engagement, increasingly with quantum, with quantum computers, can actually be unified on these two positions on a meta-level too. And if I stay with the question “do we need to need this,” then the topic of “what for” forces itself upon us again immediately. And then, if I go deeper, and take crypto as an example, that old crypto systems prove obsolete, can be broken by whoever has the quantum computer. If you go back to, sorry for the expression, the primordial soup, then we only need crypto, and I’m saying this a bit provocatively, because we deal with data we want to protect from others. So data that becomes information content, that we want to protect from others. That means the primordial soup, for me, is the lack of trust. The vehicle that ultimately sits on top of that, the computer, actually builds on a primordial problem, namely that potentially two people, two societies, two political viewpoints, or whatever, or me with the market, don’t trust each other, don’t mutually trust each other, and that what I say about them shouldn’t be accessible to them. A really exciting thing, I think.

Yes, wonderful, and especially since you mentioned chemistry and pharmaceuticals and things like that, I’m totally with you. If we spin this further, I could imagine thinking in the direction of, say, DNA analysis or something — so medicine, illnesses, cures, hereditary diseases, and so on — what doors suddenly open in your imagination if you just spin this further, all the way to DNA and so on — that’s not just relevant for medicine, pharmaceuticals, and so on, it has relevance for humanity in general, but you could also go into a different field, namely toward screening thinking, DNA matching, criminal offenses — and there we’re quickly back at the topic of data protection again, where we end up, and the discussions you can open up around that too, advantages, disadvantages, and so on and so forth. So there are quite diverse possibilities here, in which directions and in which fields this could ultimately get applied, and so I find it really exciting to take a look at this diversity too. Marc, you signaled earlier too, and wanted to add something here too.

Yes, I wanted to say something more general. Dear Yasemin, you just said, do we need this. And here in the Deep Talk Club we always say, ask and re-examine. And now I want to share something else with you. We all know microchips are really important and influence our lives, and there’s almost nothing left where a microchip isn’t used. I saw a documentary this week — it was about a device currently being developed in Germany that can look inside microchips. Two years ago I would’ve said, who needs something like that, who cares, as long as there’s a chip in it. Yes, that’s one thing. But since I’ve learned in the Deep Talk Club to question things, and look at what that does to us, what it’s important for — yes, we absolutely need these devices, because we don’t exactly know what’s inside these microchips and how they work. And in the European Union there’s now a team, an advisory team, and they place really great emphasis on being able to manufacture our own microchips, because in this documentary there was a test, and they showed that these microchips are the tanks of the future. I’m saying that deliberately provocatively. Through these microchips, so impulses, whatever, something technical got triggered, and they could bring machines to a standstill. And if we look at our systems — our flight system, our traffic light system, energy supply — microchips are everywhere. And if we don’t know how these microchips are built, what’s exactly inside them, how they work, at some point it could be easy, possibly, for there to be, like, mini-robots or mini-spies inside them, with which our energy economy, our prosperity, could get brought to a halt at the push of a button, from a certain distance, from China or from Russia. I can’t explain this to you technically, but if the European Union is dealing with this, there’s probably something to it, and then it makes sense to question everything. What does that do to us? And not just say, well, I have a microchip, it’s in my stuff, as long as my phone works, as long as my car opens — but what dangers does that hide, and what can we do to stop these dangers? And it keeps astonishing me — I, as I said, would never have thought that something else might be hidden in a microchip like that, besides the function of opening my car door, or controlling something.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much, and tying back to the question, do we even need this? That’s one question we can look at the whole thing through. From my point of view it also makes sense to pick up another question in this direction — we’ve kept picking this up with the other technologies we discussed too — so this “what for,” and the other question is, isn’t it maybe also the case that we’re allowed to accept it to a certain degree, because can we even stop it? That’s the other question that arises too. That means, even if we came to the conclusion or realization, no, we don’t need this, we don’t want this, or whatever, for whatever reasons, that also means thinking globally again, considering what that means, or what the consequence would be, if other countries use it, apply it for themselves, and so on, and we, as a country, so to speak, don’t continue investing in research and development, and what that would mean for a Germany, in five years, in ten years, in maybe 20 years. And these questions are always relevant too, and looking at it from this perspective too. Jürgen, would you like to tie in here again?

Yes, let me try to systematize my thoughts now, because this topic, do we need this — that’s actually really, for a lot of sub-areas, a really essential point for me. I mentioned this recently — I’ve read several books by this Israeli philosopher Harari, who, in the end, in one of his last books, describes this Homo Deus, so the human who rises above divine creation. And that touches, and this outlook touches exactly this second question, alongside do we need this. How can we stop it, or do we even want to stop it? And I had a flashback recently, when Elon Musk, you might remember, called for a break, a pause, let’s call it an active pause, in AI development, because it’s obviously becoming increasingly clear that alongside the opportunities, there are vehement risks emerging too. As far as I know, please correct me, as far as I know, that was an appeal that, if it was meant sincerely, I have to say that too, obviously fell flat. Because a development like this, and I’m increasingly leaning toward this position, as long as there are pioneering spirits. And even if the thoughts, and even the most bizarre results — there are various examples of this in the history of research — disappear for years, at some point the time for it comes. And then it gets pulled out of the drawer by someone else, maybe. I’ve said this before — Einstein’s theory of relativity is an example of that. That’s, for me, an unsolved problem, that’s why it’s a problem, between this “do we need this” and even if we notice the benefit is by far not as big as the dangers, how do we stop it? And my preliminary answer to that would be a connection to our overarching theme. The moment you have just one person on this globe pushing this idea forward and not giving up, this idea will eventually gain reality. That’s my current status on this topic. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much. Marc, feel free to tie in directly.

Yes, I wanted to say, Yasemin, I just remembered Rosenheim — I don’t remember his name anymore. We were in Rosenheim together, and I feel this especially strongly this year. He gave a talk where he said, from horse to car, that’s an incredible leap. Why would I need a car? A horse is really slow, and then it went from horse to car. And now I have the feeling again that we’re developing from horse to rocket technology, so to speak, and that’s everything regarding our computers, if we compare computers to quantum computers, if we compare mobility to what we have today and will have tomorrow, if we compare organizations that, through this quantum computer shipping — I already told this yesterday — can, for a route, not just calculate where the truck needs to go, but also gas prices, traffic forecasts, weather forecasts — a human actually can’t do that at all. And I really, really find this topic of pioneering spirit is as relevant as ever before. So much is changing, that I sometimes feel, with my knowledge and the knowledge I’ve had until today, like a Stone Age person compared to someone who’s ultra-modern, and simply knows things, or develops things, in the future, that I don’t have the faintest idea about, all that’s still coming toward us, and especially what that does to us, to our society. But I agree with Jürgen — these things will come. It’s never the question of whether we need this or not, but how we, as a society, deal with it.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much, and like with all technologies, with all topics, there are opportunities and risks, and the moment certain things, well, we’re always allowed to think globally here, and there’ll always be people researching certain things. Maybe you don’t even notice for a long time, in one place or another, that research is happening here, because it’s simply not necessarily accessible everywhere, but only once some breakthrough succeeds, for example, does it become experienceable, usable, for the public, or whatever. And then, especially with this pioneering-spirit topic, we’ve had this in various contexts too, in side remarks so to speak, with these technologies it’s always also about whether it’s the right time. That means it could well be, and we talked about this, that there are certain things that aren’t ripe enough for society yet, because humanity isn’t there yet. And that’s why it doesn’t get accepted societally, or similar. And the same idea, a few years later, maybe with slight modifications or something, gets a maturity, seen from humanity’s perspective, from the way of thinking, where you suddenly recognize, now we need this. Whether that’s, say, voice-controlled systems like Siri or similar — there were already similar attempts, in inverted commas, years before, that didn’t get accepted, and then a few years later they suddenly get widespread, and get picked up and applied completely differently in society too, let’s put it that way. Not necessarily acceptance in general, but at least by individual consumers. So time also plays a really essential role in this context. And on the other hand, this not-being-able-to-stop-it is a really important aspect too, because that would mean, or require, that, viewed globally, all countries pull together, and maybe a central regulatory authority would be necessary to contain it too. And efforts like in the past, where someone says or warns about certain things, like Elon Musk regarding AI, independent of us not being able to judge how sincerely that was meant — if that happens, you also see, for example, that governments too might already be quite far along in one place or another, to even realize what might be coming our way, and whether we want to intervene here or not. And as far as I’ve interpreted it, from Elon Musk’s interviews, it’s not about the question of whether this is coming per se at all, or whether it should be used at all, but this push has, to some extent, to do with saying, okay, we shouldn’t just let this run free, but should, to some extent, look at slowing it down, look at creating certain framework conditions, so it doesn’t become a danger, so to speak, so it can’t get misused, or similar. And a similar call in this direction actually came again recently too, again from him. And it’s not about saying we need to abolish this or something, or we’re not allowed to use it at all, but it’s about saying, we’re allowed to work out a few regulations or similar now, so to speak, to then make it accessible again further, so into a certain kind of deceleration, because especially these technologies, if we look from Industrialization 1.0 to 3.0, and possibly we’re already right in the middle of certain things in 4.0 now, that’s experienced an amplification. Before, it used to be that it just took a certain amount of time until it was on the market, until it reached widespread use. And now there’s an insane speed at which the whole thing reaches widespread use too. And you simply can’t keep up in various places to have these discussions and debates, to then maybe also look at it on an ethical level, to look at what that means for the whole, for humanity, and so on — where do we now really need, for example, maybe laws and criminal offenses to be introduced, to criminalize it too, if it, for example, gets used for identity theft or something, or similar. And that all needs a certain amount of time too, and that’s why this high speed needs a deceleration too, in one place or another, possibly from outside, through certain regulations or through intervention. And here too we’re back at the aspect, is it enough if a Germany discusses and implements this, or is it enough if an EU does this? Or don’t we also need to get into exchange here too, with other governments, and try to pull together, so no imbalance arises, because if only individual countries do this for themselves, and seize this opportunity to slow down, but other countries don’t join in at that point. Then, we said this has chain reactions too, we’d suffer from that again too, in inverted commas — competitive disadvantages and so on and so forth. That means you see the complexity of the topic again here too. Marc, you wanted to tie in.

Yes, I’d like to say something else. We always keep saying, and I stand behind this too, education is important. And since yesterday I’d add to that though — education is important, but doesn’t protect universally. And I was totally proud that I know, for example, what ChatGPT is, and that I’ve entered something into it before. And when you see documentaries about how fast this turns, exactly what you just said — what does that mean today? What does that mean right now, today? And in this documentary it was about a TV station sitting together with a reporter, who said, there are so many programs now that lawyers, so education, law, you used to have to study for that. It’s now known that probably 50 percent of lawyers won’t become superfluous, but they’ll get replaced by the computer. Because if we now have a TV team, and I don’t know, am I allowed to broadcast these images, what’s the legal situation, can we do this — I can enter these questions in exactly this program in a really targeted way. And since it’s all algorithms and stored, the program gives me, 99 percent accurately, exactly the answer a lawyer would give me. That’s not a verdict yet — a verdict still gets decided in actual cases, but for a company that would otherwise have asked their in-house lawyer, can we do it this way, can we go on air with this, will we get in trouble, will we get sued, and so on — a program will be able to answer all these questions pretty well in advance, in the future.

Yes, exciting, thank you, thank you so much. And whether it’s now quantum computing, which might still be relatively new for us and therefore difficult to imagine, on the other hand, since you just

mentioned ChatGPT, well, other technologies too, where we might already have the option of better access, of trying it out, so to speak. And still, even when we have access, so with quantum computing we now maybe have access mainly via the internet, to get information here, and look more closely at it, and maybe acquire knowledge too — then we have technologies where access is actually already there, where we can pick up one thing or another and try it out ourselves. And even though this access is there, the way people handle it is very different too. That means one person already uses it really intensively, another maybe just entered a few things, tried a bit, and pushed it aside again. And then we also shouldn’t forget that certain things then, well, ChatGPT has become relatively well known, but AI isn’t new, and the tools on the market in this context aren’t new either. They’re all still in development and further development, so there’s a rapid speed behind that too, but especially if we look into the AI field, we might not really have, if we don’t dive in and engage with these topics, a real idea of what I can actually personally do with it for my business. And especially if we really use the AI example as a concrete example here — I don’t know who among us has already realized how far websites can be analyzed with it. You can have an entire market searched through with the corresponding tools. You have the option to actually find out what’s being worked with, with what structures, with what systems in the background, and so on. So AI opens up really, really diverse possibilities here. But I only discover those if I engage with the topic. And it’ll be the same with quantum computing. That means, the moment I merely consume this through media, even though I might already have access, I won’t necessarily be able to find out in detail, or discover, what’s possible there, or to what extent I can apply and use that for myself too. Whereas if I start exploring these topics with a certain curiosity and joy, so to speak, and go deeper into it, just to look, without already making the prior assumption, I think this has nothing to do with me, but look at it more closely, go deeper, to first understand at all, without judging, first understand what’s actually happening there, and in which directions this could all develop, and only then get into weighing things up, into evaluations — then I might discover facets I didn’t expect at all. Maybe that as an addition too. Jürgen, would you like to add to that too?

Gladly, dear Yasemin, though regarding the previous point I’d like to add something too, on this topic of “not yet the time,” and the consequence of this demand — and let me build the bridge here to project management. It’s not the time because I haven’t convinced enough people that it’s necessary. So I need to bring these people along, that’s a synonym for me — I need to bring the people along. That’s often the case in project work too, when someone comes in as a consultant and needs to bring about a disruptive change, that people initially turn away, or even form counter-positions. I need to bring these people along. That has two aspects too, and I reflect this on Elon Musk’s statement too. One, the positive side, with bringing people along and convincing them, that’s the topic of acceptance. Time will eventually generate acceptance among many that we need quantum computers, because a certain benefit gets sold. The other thing that happens at the same time is that, through the mass of conviction, a power potential arises too. A power potential toward those who haven’t been convinced so far. And that’s, for me, a mirror image, applied to disruptive technologies like AI, computing, quantum computing, onto normal project management life, actually the same problem. Do good, but know that good has its negative sides too, because I’m also building up a power position with it. And, to close, let me say, power, just like monopoly yesterday, dear Marc, is, for me, at first, value-free, and not inherently negatively connotated. That’s what I wanted to add. Thank you for listening.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much. And there we can build the bridge back to the brain again too. We have these two areas, these two questions we keep asking ourselves, independent of what role we’re operating in. Our brain always deals with the question, whatever comes at us from outside as a stimulus or as information, does it threaten my existence — that’s the first question — and the second question is, what does it bring me, so what’s the benefit. And especially when it comes to this aspect of acceptance, especially in the context of new technologies and so on, and in conversations being had — on one hand, when looking at topics for ourselves, to always be aware of this, to deal with these questions, in inverted commas, and keep them in mind. And on the other hand, in exchange with others, and independent of whether it’s about services, new offerings, whether it’s new technologies or whatever, to always have this awareness too, to anticipate an answer to these questions, so to speak. Because only then do I connect with the other person. And that’s a really important factor, and it plays a role in this whole pioneering-spirit context too. That means, even when new ideas get brought to market, new project ideas, new contexts, new services, and so on, you notice, no matter where we observe this, whether that’s someone else bringing something new, whether it gets accepted or not, how far “humanity” already is at that point, or whether the acceptance is already there, or whether it’s something I’m now maybe bringing to someone else, whether that’s on a website, whether that’s as a product, or whatever, that it makes sense to understand these basics too, how the brain works, to be able to act against this backdrop too, and always consider, for my counterpart too, even before they, so to speak, they often don’t consciously ask themselves this question, but knowing these mechanisms, to find answers to that to some extent, and deliver them too, so to speak, offer them, at that point, to increase, on one hand, the probability of success, and maybe the acceptance too. And of course we can’t judge that now, because we weren’t there for an Elon Musk and Obama conversation, but possibly, at the time this conversation took place, it might have still been too cryptic for the other person, to not yet be able to realize what scale, what effects, or whether it threatens someone’s, or a country’s, existence, all the way to what it brings the country, to be able to realize that too. And that’s why it’s incredibly important to not just have understood these basics, but to also apply them in various contexts in everyday life, where we get into conversations, exchanges, and so on, whatever the backgrounds are that we’re operating in then too. So I think it’s important to build this bridge here again too. And with that I’d like to move into today’s closing round. You’re welcome, Marc, Jürgen, in that order, to tie in again too and make a cross-connection, to then round off today’s closing word for the room. Marc.

You just said the keyword for my highlight — exchange, the Deep Talk — and I’d like to thank you for that, dear Yasemin, and you too, dear Jürgen. Jürgen sent me a statistic yesterday about the middle class, how people view Germany’s future, and that got me to a new thought. Do we get influenced by the media too? Me too. And as we’ve been discussing for months and weeks how we’ll heat in the future, Jürgen made it clear to me again that there are so many topics that aren’t in my head at all, because they’re not present, and that right now there might be the possibility of shutting down our entire system through microchips, that jobs are moving abroad, and so on, that so much is happening around us that I need to be made specifically aware of, through this exchange, and that there’s so, so much out there. But, as I said, that’s what became clear to me — we’re discussing, and of course I engage with that too, how Germany heats in the future, but if we end up only having foreign microchips, if there’s a danger that our prosperity might no longer be guaranteed, our economy no longer guaranteed, or other powers gain the upper hand — I don’t need to worry anymore about how I’ll heat in a few years, because then I’ll have completely different problems.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much. Jürgen.

Thank you very much, dear Marc, I’m really glad about that. Two things I still wanted to get off my chest. It’s obviously been pointed out again and again recently that we, Germany and especially the EU too, are lagging behind China, behind the pacemaker in America. But according to a current statistic regarding today’s topic, quantum computing, Germany is definitely the pioneer in Europe. That should be said too. And the Fraunhofer Institute in particular apparently sets the pace there. That’s one point. And the other thing, thank you very much for this room once again — it reinforces me, or reinforced me, increasingly, in this view. Let me summarize it this way — in the basic structure, dear Yasemin, on the meta-level, everything, or almost everything, has been there before. This saying proves true — life gets understood looking back, and lived looking forward. And especially with topics like these, which have a disruptive character, it’s worth looking for parallels in the past, and actually taking along this experiential knowledge of humanity. How did people handle disruptive technologies back then? With the invention of the steam engine, with electrification, with nuclear energy, and so on and so forth. I think there’s a lot to learn from this experiential knowledge, and it lets you learn, to maybe approach these future challenges a bit differently too. All in all, a great topic again, and I wish you all a nice day still.

Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And again picking up the quote, “life is lived forward and understood backward,” from Kierkegaard, and I think it’s great that this keeps getting brought together here, so to speak, and we already had this, many rooms ago at some point, that you, Jürgen, also said it’s always worth looking back, to be able to judge certain things today too, pick them up, and consider, how did people handle it back then, how does it get handled today, or also observe developments, for example, and so on and so forth. So you can really use and apply this in many different ways. And so it’s totally exciting to look at topics from these various angles, independent of how deep we’re already into these topics. And there we’re at this umbrella theme, pioneering spirit. That means, always daring to take this step, in inverted commas, of looking into various fields, not having the feeling, well, I don’t know anything about that, or it doesn’t concern me, but daring to venture, to a certain degree, even as a non-expert, into a certain depth, on whatever level, to come to new questions and answers for yourself too. And that requires that we actually pick up on the various topics that might at first seem, for us, to have no relevance for me. And we’ll always discover a certain complexity everywhere, even if it might not seem immediately relevant for my business. It could be that I discover questions here that still have something to do with me, that could be relevant regarding the job market, and so on and so forth. And so we always have connection points, or aspects, interfaces we’ll discover, where a bridge can be built after all. And so it makes sense to actually engage with these topics too. Tomorrow we continue, and I’d like to ask you, Jürgen, before you leave, too. The original room was called digital currencies. I’d like to get into the topic of cryptos too. Should we rename it to cryptos and digital currencies? What do you say about that? And then we can gladly pick that up tomorrow too, this differentiation.

If we’re being completely correct — thanks, Yasemin, for keeping an eye on the time — if we’re being correct, it should be called crypto tokens. That’s the original term, as far as I’m updated, still current from BaFin too, and it precisely defines this circumstance, that crypto isn’t a currency. There’s currently no cryptocurrency, and especially the original idea from Nakamoto, the inventor of blockchain and the founder of Bitcoin, actually basically didn’t want this exact thing either. But we should maybe align on that tomorrow.

Yes, thank you. Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. Then we’ll switch that to crypto tokens and digital currencies, and just take a look at the differentiation. Where’s the actual difference in the terminology, and what role do both play, so to speak, in the global financial system, let’s call it that for now, but it makes sense to go into this differentiation there too, and see what’s actually hidden behind it, and I’m already looking forward to that, and so you’re all very, very warmly invited to join again tomorrow morning at 8am. I think it’ll be exciting, and I’m really curious what direction the room takes tomorrow too, to really dive deeper into this. Until then, I wish you all the best. Ciao!