Center for Hybrid Intelligence Aims to Boost Quantum Computing with AI and Crowdsourcing

(SpectrumIEEE) professor and group leader Jacob Sherson founded ScienceAtHome (SAH), at Aarhus University, in Denmark, has established the Center for Hybrid Intelligence within SAH, which tries to combine human and artificial intelligence, taking advantage of the particular strengths of each. The center’s focus is on the gamification of scientific research problems and the development of interfaces that allow people to understand and work together with AI.
Sherson said, “We believe that the design of new AI algorithms would benefit greatly from a better understanding of how people solve problems. Our first game, Quantum Moves, was inspired by our group’s research into quantum computers. Such computers can in principle solve certain problems that would take a classical computer billions of years. Quantum computers could challenge current cryptographic protocols, aid in the design of new materials, and give insight into natural processes that require an exact solution of the equations of quantum mechanics—something normal computers are inherently bad at doing.”
In Quantum Moves, a player manipulates a touch screen or mouse to move a simulated laser tweezer and pick up a trapped atom, represented by a liquidlike substance in a bowl. Then the player must bring the atom back to the tweezer’s initial position while trying to minimize the sloshing of the liquid. Such sloshing would increase the energy of the atom and ultimately introduce errors into the operations of the quantum computer.
In this way, online games can combine human brain power with AI to solve intractable problems.