The social costs of quantum futures
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Authors
Valladares, George
Issue Date
2025-06
Type
Electronic thesis
Thesis
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Science and technology studies
Alternative Title
Abstract
This thesis defines quantum anticipatory regimes and traces their genealogy from the Cold War. It argues that Cold War computing culture and expert communities developed ways to “technologically manage” the future, using computer-generated knowledge to produce simulated threats that empowered the government to mobilize uncertainty as an anticipatory power. Past American expert anticipatory regimes persisted beyond the Cold War through a cultural acceptance of computers as experts and algorithms as national infrastructure and as strategic resource. This thesis, therefore, anticipates and theorizes the evolution of expert anticipatory regimes in the promissory image of quantum computing futures. Furthermore, it posits gentrification as the evolutionary process of how American anticipatory regimes create their futures through technology. Through a discourse analysis of press releases, news coverage, and public events hosted by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the city of Chicago, it highlights how these entities imagine their own quantum futures and interprets the social cost of these futures as a function of gentrification, where marginalized communities and alternatives visions of the future are displaced. Ultimately, the desire and capital push for quantum computing futures is not just a national infrastructure project, but a conceptual restructuring of the guiding epistemology in how this country perceives the future. Quantum anticipatory regimes are the next evolution in how this country manages perceptions of what the future should be.
Description
June2025
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Full Citation
Publisher
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY