On this episode Gus is joined by Professor Rob Hevery, a law professor at Albany Law School, where he researches and writes about technology, law, and society, covering topics such as the internet, drones, robots, AI, and human augmentation. He is also a 2022 Fellow with the Center for Quantum Networks, where he is researching policy-making surrounding development and implementation of the Quantum Internet. And that is our topic on this episode: quantum networking, law, and innovation. Hang on, it’s a wild ride.
Episode Notes:
Robert Heverly is a tenured associate professor of law at Albany Law School, where he has taught since 2010. Professor Heverly has also taught at Michigan State University College of Law and at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and was a Resident Fellow with the Information Society Project at Yale Law School (where he retains an affiliation). Prof. Heverly is a 2022 Fellow with the Center for Quantum Networks, where he is researching policy-making surrounding development and implementation of the Quantum Internet. Prof. Heverly researches and writes about technology, law, and society, covering topics such as the internet, drones, robots, AI, and human augmentation. He teaches classes in Torts, cyberspace law, copyright law, and unmanned aerial vehicles. His article, “More is Different: Liability of Compromised Systems in Internet Denial of Service Attacks” was recently published in the Florida State University Law Review. Prof. Heverly was Chair of the AALS Internet and Computer Law Section and was the Reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s “Uniform Tort Law Relating to Drones Act.” He holds a J.D. from Albany Law School and an LL.M. from Yale Law School.
Links:
On this episode Gus is joined by Professor Rob Hevery, a law professor at Albany Law School, where he researches and writes about technology, law, and society, covering topics such as the internet, drones, robots, AI, and human augmentation. He is also a 2022 Fellow with the Center for Quantum Networks, where he is researching policy-making surrounding development and implementation of the Quantum Internet. And that is our topic on this episode: quantum networking, law, and innovation. Hang on, it’s a wild ride.
Episode Notes:
Robert Heverly is a tenured associate professor of law at Albany Law School, where he has taught since 2010. Professor Heverly has also taught at Michigan State University College of Law and at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and was a Resident Fellow with the Information Society Project at Yale Law School (where he retains an affiliation). Prof. Heverly is a 2022 Fellow with the Center for Quantum Networks, where he is researching policy-making surrounding development and implementation of the Quantum Internet. Prof. Heverly researches and writes about technology, law, and society, covering topics such as the internet, drones, robots, AI, and human augmentation. He teaches classes in Torts, cyberspace law, copyright law, and unmanned aerial vehicles. His article, “More is Different: Liability of Compromised Systems in Internet Denial of Service Attacks” was recently published in the Florida State University Law Review. Prof. Heverly was Chair of the AALS Internet and Computer Law Section and was the Reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s “Uniform Tort Law Relating to Drones Act.” He holds a J.D. from Albany Law School and an LL.M. from Yale Law School.
Links:
Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and has not been thoroughly reviewed for completeness or accuracy.
[00:00:00] Gus Herwitz: This is Tech Refactored. I'm your host, Gus Herwitz, the Menard Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center at the University of Nebraska. Today we're joined by Rob Heverly, a law professor at Albany Law School, where he researches and writes about technology, law and society, covering topics such as the internet, drones, robots, ai, and human augmentation.
He's also a 2022 fellow with the Centerfor Quantum Networks, where he is researching policy making, surrounding development and implementation of the quantum internet. And that's our topic today, quantum networking, law, and innovation. Rob, thank you for joining us.
[00:00:57] Rob Hevery: Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. [00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Gus Herwitz: So we're, we're talking about quantum stuff, uh, today, quantum networking, which means that we're going to need to do some unpacking of, uh, complex technology.
But I, I'd like to, uh, start before we get into some of the technology issues, um, by asking about the Center for Quantum Networks and, uh, your role there.
[00:01:19] Rob Hevery: So the Center for Quantum Networks is, um, Is the National Science Foundation sponsored center. So they're, they're under grant from the nsf and they're working toward making the quantum internet a real thing.
Um, and so they have a bunch of sort of, not sort of, I guess, but's, real hardcore scientist physicists. Um, networking folks working to overcome the challenges that arise from trying to take quantum technology and apply it in the networking space. So we've all heard about quantum computers and how important they're gonna, and how they're gonna a whole bunch of things and fix a whole bunch of things while we wanna use [00:02:00] this technology for networking as well and, and create the quantum [indistinguishable].
[00:02:04] Gus Herwitz: So I appreciate, uh, really quite deeply how you, um, started, how you framed that. There are a lot of really hardcore scientists that the NSF has brought together, uh, to work on this. And then there are also some faults from the law and other fields. Um, so what, how did you get involved? You're, you're a law professor, Rob!
[00:02:22] Rob Hevery: And, and I don't have a, a hard science background, right? So, um, I've been doing this kind of work around tech pretty much my entire academic life. And so, uh, the way that this started was the folks, when they put together the bid included, um, an aspect to focus on social impacts, and that's pretty unique from what I understand.
Um, in nsf they tend to focus pretty, pretty hardcore on the science. These folks said, you know, this is gonna be in society. Maybe we wanna have some nonscientists look and think about the social impacts [00:03:00] of what the quantum internet or quantum networking might do. NSF was apparently like, Huh, that sounds good.
Let's, let's do that. And then they put out a, a cost. So they started one year and they had a couple of fellows, and then they put out a call for people to, um, to join them for the, for the second year. To look, uh, more deeply and in a bigger group. There's probably nine or 10 of us I think, that are, that are gonna be doing this work.
And they've got communications specialists and networking folks and, uh, one or two other lawyers, law professors. And the idea is to take a look at this, uh, the beginning and try to make some of the connections to law and regulation in society, um, as this stuff's being developed. Cause it's not really in play yet.
And so what do we wanna think about before it?
[00:03:48] Gus Herwitz: Yeah. So part of the, the thinking behind this is I, uh, it's my understanding is, um, a lot of, uh, NSF projects are starting to incorporate this in, uh, to their, uh, broader impacts, [00:04:00] um, considerations. We build all these technologies and then afterwards we realize, What have we done?
You, you, you never we're so focused on whether you could do this. You never stop to think about whether you should, uh, do this. Um, and, uh, we're, we're starting to think more at the outset of this research. What, what are these future considerations, um, that, uh, uh, we should be looking at and thinking about?
Um, what, what's your experience, uh, so far, uh, been working in this context?
[00:04:29] Rob Hevery: Well, it's been really interesting. I actually was, was helping. Physicist with, of all things, a copyright question that he had. So a local physicist at a, you know, university here in Albany. And, um, as we finished, I sort of made a little joke.
I said, I'm gonna be playing in your, in your sandbox. I'm doing a little bit with quantum networks in law. And there was sort of this, this pause and another little bit of a pause and he said, What does law have to do with quantum networks, which of course as a lawyer made me go every day. It has everything to [00:05:00] do with quantum networks 'cause you're gonna roll them out- you should read some [indistinguishable], law has an effect it's not arbitrary,
so there's been, I think, quite a bit of that. Um, I've run into this as well when I've done the stuff on human augmentation. There's stuff about cyborg technology, technology better than the body. When you go and talk to people who are doing stuff that puts technology into the brain and when you're done, they go, I never thought of any of that before.
I just thought of how cool it would be to make this thing that I'm working on work. So you go, Maybe we should think around that a little bit as we're working on the technology. So it's been, you know, they, they don't see us as, as scientists. They see us as something else. But so far the people that they've had have said things that seem, I think they've been taken.
Being worth listening to and thinking about as well. So having felt rejection, I felt more sort of like, Huh, I guess that's something we [00:06:00] need think about. We try to think about these quantum.
[00:06:06] Gus Herwitz: Yeah. So you, um, mentioned, and just for listeners, uh, have you read any Lessig that's, uh, Lawrence Lessig, um, another law professor who's probably best known for, uh, uh, really advancing, um, the idea that code is law or that the way that we design systems, uh, that this isn't just lessig, many people have, uh, worked and expanded.
Uh, the way that we design technologies, uh, defines the affordances, the capabilities that that technology will enable or might not enable. So we, a, as we're building the future, we need to be thinking about the, what that future is going to allow and disallow, um, and the, the impacts that, that, uh, might have.
Um, now I'm going to ask you, uh, the question that I'm, I'm sure that, uh, you get asked often as a, uh, lawyer and law profess. Uh, what, what is the quantum internet ?
[00:06:59] Rob Hevery: [00:07:00] I, I recently, um, heard someone talking about this and they said if anybody tells you they know what quantum computing is, then they're probably lying.
Um, so it starts with quantum computing and, and the computers that we use and the networks that we use rely on fits, zeros and ones. Down at it's fundamental, when you code something, you code it in, in, um, source code, and then it's translated down into the com. The code that the computer reads, which is all the zeros and ones, um, that limits to a certain degree what you can do because you need to be able to have it expressed in zeros and ones, and they need to be interpreted in a certain linear way.
Even if you have many processors, you can only get to a certain point as to how quick you can go. Um, although we seem to be pushing that boundary all the time, Quantum technology works not with just zeros and ones, but the pieces that carry information in quantum [00:08:00] computing and in quantum networking. Can be in one of two stages or both at the same time.
Something that's called, um, superposition. It goes back to sort of the, the um, scher cat thing, right? Which is often, is often misunderstood. Um, as him saying, I've got a cat in a box until I open the box. You don know Whether's a cat is alive or dead. He was a little a Cobb than that. He actually had some poison in with the cat, and then you wouldn't know whether the poison had yet killed the cat or not until you opened and looked at the cat.
And so the idea is that with this additional sort of. Opportunity that's presented by the superposition, you can do a lot more work. The work is done very, very differently. It's, it's not at all, um, simply straightforwardly say adding one in one to get to it actually deal. It actually deals with probabilities and all sorts of other, um, types [00:09:00] of concepts to try to get the information to be useful.
So instead of having a bit, which is a zero or one, we have two bits which are made up of photons. Um, and those are used to convey the information and they can convey it more and differently. And computers that are using those bits can do more things all at once. So quantum computing's really good for like sensor networks where you're trying to figure out what's being, um, what's being seen by the sensors, whereas a where's a normal or a binary, I dunno, what do you call it, A classical computer, I'm not even quite sure what to refer to this.
Um, would go sort of like one by one looking at the different pieces of sensor information as it comes in. Quantum computer can essentially look at it all, all at once. So we kinda,
[00:09:48] Gus Herwitz: we kinda have this situation. You, you use the example of Schrodinger's cat? Uh, the, uh, well, generally, and apologies. I'm a cat lover.
I've got a cat on my [00:10:00] t-shirt right now. Um, uh, for those who might not be familiar with Schrodinger's cat, go, uh, to the, the normal internet and Wikipedia and look it up. Uh, it's a famous experiment, but the, the basic idea is that with quantum information, uh, it can be in this indeterminate. Yes, it's true.
No, it's not state. Both, uh, both states at once. Um, and until you do something with it, you don't know what the actual answer is. So if you have a question or you have a boatload of questions, you have 200 different questions and you want to ask them all at once, um, without having to answer each one individually to figure out what a range of possible answers is, that that's kind of what quantum computers let us do, and it lets us solve.
A range of very difficult, uh, uh, computations that otherwise traditional computers, classical computing might not be able to do or might take a really, really long time for it to do right.
[00:10:59] Rob Hevery: And [00:11:00] then the other piece of the quantum, the physics, um, of, of quantum physics that fits in is, is more used.
Networking, and that's entanglement. And that's the idea that photons can be created at our intertwined, regardless of their distance apart. And this is something that historically Einstein just couldn't, He couldn't, he called it spooky, um, action at a distance. And he said there's no, there's no way to describe a beautiful world.
This is why Parar, he's a beautiful world that includes this weirdness, and it's really probably one of the biggest failures that he had because he was just wrong. It's been proven now that we do have spooky action, a distance, and so what the quantum networking piece of this does is allow us to have the, the, the biggest thing I think that it does is allow us to have very, very secure networking communications because you can't listen in.
On something that's been sent by a quantum network [00:12:00] without the people who are sending and receiving, knowing it, it changes it. And that's, that sort of has to do, um, with this entanglement piece where the photons, they're, they're not the same, but it change to one is reflected in a change to the other.
And if you measure them in the same way, they will measure the same. And there are different ways to do the measurements that I'm not. Um, I went to one of the sessions recently and I was like, Okay, you can measure spin and you can do something that I didn't. I think it's funny. One of the first I, when started Think get book called, um, Like basic introduction to quantum networking, I think.
And so I opened it and there's your sort of standard first chapter and you know, half page. And then I turned the page and it was like literally the next two pages were formulas. And I said, Okay, this is not a basic introduction. This is like a math scientist's basic introduction and, and it's hard to find.
[00:13:00] Stuff that's, that's written so that you can, um, fully understand it. But the entanglement piece means that you can make networks really, really secure, um, so that they can't be listened and on in the in between. If somebody's in the room with you, when you and I are having this conversation, a quantum network's not gonna help.
They have a microphone on my desk. Um, outside of that communications challenge, that's not gonna help. Somebody's gonna be able to listen, but they won't be able to be in the, and a in the middle, which is what, who's Interceptive Communications. So it's to be able to know what to say, um, because if that happens, then.
Participants will know. And that's kind the the biggest sort of thing. I mean, the quantum network will allow quantum computers to be connected. That's kind important too, because that means you can, you can harness these super powerful computers to do even more super, super powerful stuff. Physicists would be having a fit, you know, using the terminology, but, That's okay.
Um, and [00:14:00] you can use them, like I said, for not just for a single sensor, but for networks of sensors. So now if you have a quantum network, you can network together sensors and do even more sensing, um, using that network of them because the, the network that you've set up uses that same technology. But I think the thing that a lot of people are gonna see is gonna be the.
Portion of it. Yeah.
[00:14:25] Gus Herwitz: So let, let's, uh, turn to that, uh, uh, briefly. You've, uh, done work, uh, obviously in law and technology communications and, uh, internet related topics, and, uh, part of that is privacy and data security. Um, so, uh, can you tell us a little bit, uh, before we go to a, a brief break about the sorts of law and policy questions that you've been starting to think about?
Um, with respect to quantum networking? Well,
[00:14:55] Rob Hevery: one of the, so, so my specific project is looking [00:15:00] at past examples of similar types of developments and the kinds of things that have happened when policy makers become involved. And so part of what. Happens when these kind of technologies arise when they're developed, especially something thats from encryption is there are very distinct stakeholders who get agitated.
So, uh, law enforcement and national security folks who don't like when there are. Conversations that they can't get to when they've been approved to get to them. So let's keep it all above board and let's say that they're not trying to any sort go to court and get an order that says to between this is some sort of criminal and this person who is assisting in criminal endeavors and this.
I think one of the things that's going to happen here, and we've seen it in the past [00:16:00] and some of the efforts to, um, get in there, heck, we've seen it recently with, with policy makers and, and regulators and law enforcement trying to get Apple to open up the Apple ecosystem so that. Technologies can be done.
We've seen it with England saying to um, some of the Communications Telegram and WhatsApp, Hey, you better allow us to be able to listen into and capture the substance of conversations. You can't. You'll be in violations of the law operating. Um, and so what I'm gonna, what I'm doing is I'm looking at those past examples, um, and bringing them forward for two reasons.
One is so that physicists are aware that somebody might come to them one day and say, You better build it this way. And so that policy makers look at it and understand. What's happening now so that they can get their heads around what the capabilities are that they might have, and then hopefully the end goal is hopefully that they're talking to each other from this very early stage, rather than waiting until things are in play to, to get to [00:17:00] that, to that point.
[00:17:01] Gus Herwitz: There's a, a really nice entanglement there that you give us between the physicists developing the technologies and the policy makers understandings of, and expectations for how the policies work. Um, we are going to take a brief break. Uh, you are listening in on the conversation that, uh, I'm having with Rob heavily about the quantum internet.
We will be back in a moment.
[00:17:29] Paige Ross: I'm Paige Ross, a student fellow at the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center. The student fellows at the center are drawn from across the University of Nebraska, including the colleges of law, business engineering, and journalism and mass communications. In the program, we develop research projects focused on the intersection of society and technology and working in multidisciplinary teams.
Think about how to communicate our work to the. Some of this year's subjects include designing autonomous vehicles with drivers in [00:18:00] mind, satellite congestion, and low earth orbit, and taking the politics out of online content moderation. We have some fun and network with fellow students and faculty too.
The program is open to graduate or law students at the University of Nebraska. And welcome students from all departments. Now back to this episode of Tech Refactored.
[00:18:25] Gus Herwitz: and we are back with Professor of Rob Heley of uh, Albany Law School. Who is a 2022 fellow, uh, at the Center of Quantum Networks, talking about the quantum internet and the law and policy issues that he has been, uh, studying related to this. And I want to pick up where we left off. So you, you, Rob, had been talking about this challenge in, uh, primarily law, uh, the, the legal.
Of, uh, what we think of as, uh, intercepts or frequently, uh, uh, um, wire tapping [00:19:00] warrant. Wire taps. Yeah. You hadn't introduced this idea yet, but I, I want to, uh, take us here because, um, uh, most listeners will have some sense that, uh, law enforcement, the government, They can go to courts and get a warrant, a judge issues a warrant, and then law enforcement can go and, uh, demand you give access to whatever it is that the search warrant lets, uh, then get access to.
But that's all governed by the Fourth Amendment. Uh, wiretaps, however, are actually governed by a separate. Law in addition to the Fourth Amendment, that's even more restrictive. So if law enforcement wants to get a wire tap installed on, uh, my phone, they can't just go to a judge and say, Hey, we have probable cause.
We think, uh, this h sky is doing something problematic. They need to have greater particularity explain why they have to have a wire. Give specific phone numbers that they're going to be listening in on. There's a lot more oversight. And the reason for that is because we think these [00:20:00] communications are really sensitive, um, that we don't want the government easily to be able to get access to these communications.
And also, I don't have much ability to know that I'm being surveilled, that I have government officers listening to my conversations if police show up at my house with a search warrant. I can call up my lawyer and I can have my lawyer give me some advice and help me out. Uh, I know that I have a warrant served upon me so I can fight it.
I can't do that if I don't know that I have a wire tap on my phone because it's secret. Um, so with, uh, that is some introduction, um, can, can you tell us how, uh, you're thinking about, uh, quantum communication and quantum networking and, and its relationship to these questions of protecting sensitive communications?
[00:20:50] Rob Hevery: So the reason for the wire tap a really was, well, because of the reason she said, we wanna watch this. But, but what led to it [00:21:00] right, was the ease of law enforcement to be able to listen in on telephone conversations because your telephone conversations all went through the telephone company. So they could go to the telephone company and go, You've got some wires connecting that phone and that phone.
And we'd like to just add a little listening in on that. And then we're gonna listen in. And that was readily technologically achievable. And there are stories from the early days where you would hears when the police tapped your phone. And so people who were criminals would, would hear an additional noise or some other sort of static on the line, and then they would think, Hey, my line is, And of course, the technology improved, so that that wasn't the case anymore.
But as that happened, We felt like we needed more protection for these kinds of things. So fast forward then to the start of the internet, and part of what's happening is the internet ramps up and starts to be used for commercially used by citizens for all these different, including communications. And we get encryption.
And encryption means that somebody [00:22:00] can't listen in on your communication unless they have the key to the encryption algorithm that you're. And um, that posed a problem because now the police who used to just be able to go to the phone company and say, Here I have this warrant. Let listen in, could do that.
And whoever was providing the internet connectivity service, the internet service provider would go: "I can't do anything about that. It's encrypted from, from Heverly's end and Herwitz's end. I can't hear that. You can't hear that. It's all encrypted." There are technologies today that do that. When you, when you up WhatsApp, it says "encrypted end-to-end",
We can't hear your conversations. Nobody can hear it. That got the law enforcement and national security community up in arms and at one point they decided in the nineties that all technology that allows for encryption ought to have a chip. That when they get permission, they can use to listen in, um, communications that are encrypted.
So that would allow them to break the communication, [00:23:00] um, to be able to listen. And they had all these things, um, including a piece that was called Key Escrow that would only allow them to listen and if they got the key from some third party who held it. Who then required them to show that they had appropriate legal authority to listen.
So they wouldn't just be able to sort of like willy nilly listen in. It would be a similar type of wire act provision. Um, but technologically built in technology community went nuts. You can't do that. That breaks encryption. Process all kinds of potential problems. There was a strong pushback from civil society, tech, society, including tech companies that which are concerned about their, their users, um, privacy.
And so that eventually failed, not, not least of which, because somebody broke the encryption in the clipper check. So if they had actually passed it and ended up in devices, all of those devices would've been vulnerable because it was, that's one of the sort of lessons of the policy makers. Coming [00:24:00] together with the technology and trying to achieve a goal which isn't necessarily consistent with the technology.
Um, the technology was encryptions designed to hide things from third party prying ears and eyes, and they didn't want it to be able to do that. And so they wanted a broken form of encryption. So now we come to Quantum and I see this arising again. Because, uh, the encryption here really is even more unbreakable.
We have recent stories where the FBI has gotten assistance in breaking apple phones, breaking into hacking them to be able to access them, even though apple's encryption is pretty good. But we're to a point now where our counter encryption technology is pretty. That's not, that won't fly when it comes to the quantum network or when it comes to quantum computing.
The encryption is just gonna be too good. Um, again, if they could get a microphone on my desk, they don't need to worry about the encryption part of it. But if they can't do that and they wanna [00:25:00] access it across the network, they're going to want some sort of access, I would imagine. Um, and all of the designers proceeding right now to not give them access.
So, The technologists should be aware this is a thing that might happen and the policy makers should probably be aware that it might not be technically possible. Unless you start with every single piece of quantum network technology, in other words, unless you build something in there that makes it breakable.
And so that's part of what I'm doing is taking that historical analysis and using it to provide an example to the developers today and to the policy makers of where there's gonna be some tension between. Their goals. Yeah.
[00:25:43] Gus Herwitz: So many, uh, folks will be familiar with all of the, the fights over just recent years and they, they go back to the early nineties.
And this technology you're talking about, Rob, the, the clipper chip, um, all of these fights over, uh, encryption and [00:26:00] uh, can the government force, uh, Apple to decrypt the, uh, sandburn dino shooters iPhone. That's the, uh, most recent big example. But governments around the world have been. Talking for years about requiring, uh, uh, encryption back doors so that, uh, if the police get a warrant to access my encrypted device, I won't be able to tell them, No, you can't, because that's not usually how, uh, the law works.
Um, and you're, you're. You're highlighting this tension, um, that the, the technology needs to potentially face that Congress or some legislator somewhere doesn't need to be in the United States, might tell the, the engineers make this network such that if we, the government tell you to decrypt it, you can.
And the, the engineer. Might say we can't do that. It's impossible to design the network, or we didn't design the network, [00:27:00] uh, that way when we designed it, uh, 15, 20, a hundred, however long, uh, years ago. Um, how, how do the engineers, uh, the physicists that you're talking to respond, uh, when you, uh, give them this cautionary tale?
[00:27:15] Rob Hevery: So I haven't done a lot of the presentation to them yet. We had one, um, session in January, which was sort of, this is what we're
say, not a lot more than I just said. When, um, I've had a little bit more in conversations. They kind of get quiet and thoughtful because pretty much what they're doing right now is they're trying to make it not do that. That's the whole point of the, we supposed just, Is that what we're supposed? It's critical to that.
It's near, as I can tell, we won't be switching over to a quantum. That won't replace our internet. All of the, [00:28:00] all of my understanding of the quantum internet is it runs alongside, or with the classical internet, they actually will have pictures. If you go and look up quantum internet online, you'll see pictures and there's always, sometimes they minimize.
There'll be like, there'll be all these connections between the different parts of. The quantum internet nodes that they're talking about in the ends and, and Bob sending stuff to Alice, and Alice is sending stuff to Bob. But always somewhere there's like a little pink line that shows that the classic internet, in other words, slower than light speed communication plays an important role in what's happening.
And so, um, when, when talking to them, they're like, But. This is like really cool what we're doing and, and it would be really good and it would be really functional and, and I, I've had them call it be, which I say my limited understanding, I can actually harness things that are level. [00:29:00] That's wonderful. They, they're, they just sort of look at you a little bit.
Like that's the point of the things that we're doing this, It was sort of civil society's in tech society's response to the clipper chip. Like, that's not the point of these. Like maybe you could just tell us that we can't have it at all. Right. I mean, we went through, we went through export controls where for a little while, encryption algorithms were, were, um, categorized as musicians because we didn't want them to go to other places.
Well then, then you couldn't have strong encryption to other countries. So if you were doing banking track sections and other things, they wouldn't be able to have that. Then that's another thing that eventually. Shifted to, to pressure. Um, and I, I can see similar kinds of, of things happening. Um, that pressure coming up on the technology to solve this as a problem to be solved.
And it's, it's always this back and forth between law. Um, Law and technology and society. Um, and that's why, so Leslie [00:30:00] did talk about how code is law and sets certain boundaries, but he also talked a lot about how code isn't the only thing. Law isn't the only thing. Norms aren't the only markets aren't, These are all pieces that are pushing in to try to create outcomes.
And sometimes when you're in one of the silos, when you're in the market, you don't see. Law might have a set, and when you're in the technology, you might not see that norms have a set and so. Part of my project is to bring this all up and, and it also has a part where I'm looking, um, and trying to decide whether it's important to, policy makers sometimes don't understand technology and regulate it anyway.
And so the big example there is Ted Steven standing on the floor of the US Senate, um, during a hearing on the internet, and he was chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversaw the internet. Um, and he referred to the internet as a series of two. And I think that's a really, really bad analogy for the internet.
And there are some people who come and say he's, and [00:31:00] he's not wrong. It's just not a good understanding of what the internet or the works or worked at that time of the response I've to that is legislators, especially at the US national level, don't actually make policy their staffers do and their staffers know what's going on.
And so we've got other, you know, we've got other questions. Um, questions to somebody from Facebook about, um, one of their competitors, like, Why do you do this? And then was like, Well, that's actually, but again, the response there was all of their staffers know that that was theirs. It doesn't actually end up in policy taking a look at that.
Cause this technology's really hard to understand. Is that gonna affect the kinds of things that people are demanding from it as well? So those, those pieces, I'm trying to bring those together.
[00:31:54] Gus Herwitz: You and I are lawyers and law professors, which means we play a, a [00:32:00] special role in society and thinking about bringing these pieces together and in particular how you, uh, de describe the technology.
In main ways, just beautiful. It, it has a beautiful aesthetic in what we're engineering it and designing it to do is just so perfect and beautiful. And if it works, it's amazing. But society has issues and society is beautiful in its own way, which oftentimes is a pretty ugly sort of way. And we, we, lawyers are the folks on the, the ugly end of society trying to design laws to deal with how the world actually works and, and.
It's just such a juxtaposition and hard, hard question that you are forcing us to think about and that society forces us to think about. I, I'll, I'll just phrase it this terribly macab sort of way, and that this is kind of the punchline of every, uh, uh, legal class, any law professors ever, ever taught. [00:33:00] Is this why we can't have nice things?
[00:33:02] Rob Hevery: Mm. Yeah. I, I mean, Certainly the things that that Einstein discoveries led to, right? Nuclear weapons and other things, and all of those projects give us nuclear power and give us nuclear weapons, which for the last sort of memorable time, we weren't actually all too worked up about, right? They were a theoretical thing and now everybody's all worried about the nuclear weapon part of nuclear weapons.
And we've, we've gone against nuclear power because of things like Fr Shima and inter Noble. Whereas overall, if we look at sort of the, the hard statistical basis of it. It's really scary when it goes bad, but it doesn't go bad very often and it's probably better for us and a whole bunch of other things we do.
And so, um, yeah, I think that's it. I think that it's funny because as people we like to do technology, we like to do these things, develop things, right? It's really neat that they do these things. Um, [00:34:00] and, and they do see the beauty in. And I'm sure the physicists who are looking for boon and dealing with all of those fundamental physics questions are looking for the beauty in it, but it does impact society and this is certainly something that's gonna have some impact.
We haven't touched on the thing cause it's not really networking, but. They call it the quantum APOs because when quantum computers are plenty, the technology that we use now to secure our communications will be essentially worthless. So the transaction I did this would to, who has deciding would like to there?
So, um, All of the technology, you know, it's, it's sort of that basic philosophical question about whether technology can be good or evil, or whether it's people that are good or evil. Um, we can take it down to the very timely guns, all the way up to any sort of communications technology, which can be used for good.
Um, I learned of a [00:35:00] friend whose wife who had cancer using the internet. Terrorists have communicated using the internet, so, which isn't one or the other. And, and I think that the idea. To just keep that balance in mind. The beauty isn't enough of the technology and I'm really happy that NSF is starting to take up these, these social impacts.
That said, you know, I don't know what the quantum Internet's gonna look like. Like I can tell you, I think it's important for networking quantum computers and for sensors and for encryption, but the people who developed the internet thought it would be pointy headed, geek, probably like us, who would be talking across the internet to share research.
They didn't foresee it as a commercial network necessarily, but it was built in such a way that it allowed that. Um, is that gonna happen with the quantum internet? I have no idea. Like, I don't see it right now, but there's all sorts of things that I don't see and so I don't want, I don't want to try to paint a picture with this deterministic view of where we're gonna end up with quantum networking.
So I [00:36:00] wanna show possibilities, um, and try to see what different pieces will lead us in different directions in relation to.
[00:36:07] Gus Herwitz: Yeah, I, I love the, um, optimistic, uh, spin there. And I, I think that, that, that's a, a nice response, uh, to my Mac, Cobra, sort of, we, we lawyers are around to remind you all of how messy the world is that can be followed up with.
And to help us navigate our way to a better world that incorporates and allows for, uh, these technologies. Um, what, what's, uh, up next for you? What are you, uh, continuing to think about, uh, on these issues?
[00:36:38] Rob Hevery: So the next piece is really to, to take this summer, um, and dive deep into these issues, to spend a lot more time talking to physicists and to try to put together something.
That lays out the historical piece of it. Look, here's something that looks like that, sort of like baby of what you're trying to do and these are the policy [00:37:00] issues that arose. And let's think about how we would guide ourselves through these different. Policy questions and what some of the good answers might be that we would then with that sort of following.
[00:37:26] Gus Herwitz: Okay. Well I am very much looking forward both, uh, to seeing your work continue, develop to develop here, and also one these days, uh, to, uh, catching up with you again in person. Rob, it's been too long. Um,
[00:37:39] Rob Hevery: so they gonna let us do that. I know that they're gonna let us. Too.
[00:37:42] Gus Herwitz: I, I'm not sure when, but, um, I'm optimistic that one, one of these days my friend, we shall meet again,
But I would like that. Uh, thank you again, Rob. And thank you to our listeners, uh, for joining us on this episode of Tech Refactored. I have been your host, Gus Herwitz. If you want to learn more about what we're doing [00:38:00] here at the Governance and Technology Center, or would like to submit an idea for a future episode, you can go to our website at ngtc.unl.edu,
or you can follow us on Twitter at UNL underscore NGTC. If you enjoyed the show, please don't forget to leave us a review and rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Our show is produced by Elsbeth Magilton and Lysandra Marquez and Colin McCarthy created and recorded our theme music. This podcast is part of the Menard Governance and Technology Programming Series.
Until next time, I'll be here. And there and everywhere it's quantum.