Quantum Computing Ethics Must Move Beyond Bad Actor Fears Study Argues

A critical examination of modern quantum computing discourse reveals that framing ethical concerns almost entirely around malicious adversaries narrows moral reflection, displaces responsibility across the development pipeline, and obscures systemic hazards inherent to the technology itself. In an original research paper published in the journal NanoEthics, researcher Wenzel Mehnert investigates the pervasive bad actor narrative that characterizes contemporary debates surrounding emerging quantum technologies. According to this narrative, the severe risks associated with advanced computational power are attributed primarily to hostile nation-states, rogue cybercriminals, or hacktivists who exploit systems in unintended ways, rather than to the design, deployment, or commercial priorities established by developers. Drawing on theoretical foundations from Science and Technology Studies, technology assessment, the sociology of expectations, and responsible innovation, Mehnert demonstrates that this framing allows scientists and engineers to treat their technical work as morally neutral while transforming urgent socio-technical challenges into narrow engineering problems requiring technological fixes.

To deconstruct how these narratives operate, the study relies on the tradition of hermeneutic technology assessment and the analytical framework of the Futures Circle, which examines how articulated visions of the future shape present decisions. The investigation treats technofutures not as neutral forecasts or factual predictions about what will happen, but as socially constructed present futures that convey specific values, hopes, and anxieties. Within this framework, technofutures function through simple conditional structures where an anticipated technical capability leads directly to a consequence demanding immediate societal intervention. By analyzing recurring narrative patterns and cultural tropes across emerging technology sectors, the research establishes that these stories are performative socioepistemic practices. Rather than waiting for empirical validation, technofutures actively establish alliances, direct public and private funding streams, influence regulatory policies, and position different stakeholders as characters within an unfolding societal drama, thereby structuring the trajectory of quantum development long before functional hardware achieves scale.

The prefiguration of the bad actor narrative in quantum computing is rooted in the widely discussed quantum threat scenario, which posits that fully functional quantum machinery will inevitably compromise the public-key cryptographic protocols underpinning global cybersecurity, international commerce, and national defense. This scenario traces its technical origin to Peter Shor’s algorithm, which proved that computers operating on quantum bits, or qubits, could exploit quantum superposition across exponentially many states to solve the mathematical problems securing conventional digital encryption far faster than classical machines. The narrative gained widespread momentum through the work of researcher Michele Mosca, who formalized the urgency using the Mosca inequality equation. This theorem contrasts the duration cryptographic keys must remain secure, designated as X, added to the time required to develop and deploy quantum-safe cryptographic tools, designated as Y, against the timeline until a quantum computer capable of breaking current encryption is built, designated as Z. When X plus Y exceeds Z, the model dictates an immediate systemic crisis that demands planning and structural intervention in the present.

In examining the configuration of this narrative across contemporary policy documents, industry analyses, and tech-foresight publications, the study highlights how institutions have institutionalized the threat. Think tanks such as the RAND Corporation, commentators warning North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, and leadership forums like the World Economic Forum have framed the potential breakdown of public-key cryptography as an economic catastrophe driven by malicious users. Survey data cited in the research underscore the depth of this institutional framing: a Global Risk Institute timeline report involving thirty-two experts estimated that Q-Day, the threshold when quantum machines can dismantle existing decryption, would arrive within fifteen to twenty years; a Capgemini survey of one thousand organizations found that nearly two-thirds viewed quantum computing as their most critical cybersecurity threat over the next three to five years; and an ISACA survey of more than twenty-six hundred information technology and risk professionals indicated that two-thirds anticipated heightened cyber risks within a decade. These surveys uniformly bypassed whether quantum computers would break modern security, asking only when it would occur, while warning of Harvest Now, Decrypt Later operations where adversaries archive encrypted communications today for future computational decryption.

The study highlights how this narrative architecture serves specific commercial and institutional incentives by framing proactive defense, specifically Post-Quantum Cryptography, as the only viable response to an impending cryptocalypse. Consultancies, security vendors, and technology analysts who actively promote the bad actor narrative frequently operate as the commercial providers of post-quantum solutions, thereby benefiting directly from the widespread distribution of doomsday expectations. The paper notes Scott Aaronson’s observation that one of the primary practical applications of quantum computing has become the commercial creation of demand for quantum cryptography itself. By framing the future as a foregone crisis driven by external adversaries, the bad actor storyline transforms speculative risks into an engine for immediate capital investment, infrastructure replacement, and advisory services, mobilizing financial and political resources through anticipatory fear while closing down deliberation regarding whether alternative developmental trajectories might better serve the broader public interest.

In analyzing the refiguration stage of the Futures Circle, the research documents how government bodies have integrated the bad actor scenario into public policy, producing self-fulfilling strategic commitments. In the United States, executive directives from the Biden-Harris administration in 2022 and 2024, alongside formal warnings from the National Security Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, established post-quantum migration as a national security imperative, culminating in standardized post-quantum cryptographic algorithms. Similarly, the European Commission issued policy recommendations and strategic roadmaps urging member states to initiate coordinated transitions of critical public and digital infrastructures to quantum-safe systems by the end of 2026. The study observes that these state interventions trap governments in a competitive game-theoretic dynamic where actors suspect rivals will advance the technology regardless, forcing continuous public subsidization while treating the malicious misuse of quantum tools as inevitable collateral damage outweighed by anticipated economic gains.

Turning to the ethical consequences of this dynamic, the study identifies its first major problem: an overwhelming focus on external misuse that systematically ignores the severe societal risks stemming from legitimate, intended applications. By presuming that ethical dangers arise exclusively when technology falls into the wrong hands, the narrative implies that proper deployment by authorized developers remains benign. Historical analogies, such as the automobile generating widespread traffic congestion, urban division, and environmental degradation despite functioning exactly as intended, demonstrate that large-scale technical systems introduce profound structural harms through ordinary use. In quantum computing, legitimate commercial adoption could exacerbate global digital divides, centralize computational power among wealthy states and corporate monopolies, and amplify surveillance capabilities. Furthermore, physical constraints requiring qubits to be stabilized in extreme environments cooled to minus 273 degrees Celsius enforce centralized cloud architectures by design, creating systemic bottlenecks of corporate gatekeeping and unequal access that persist entirely independent of malicious actors.

The second major ethical failure exposed by the research is the systematic fragmentation and displacement of moral accountability along the entire technological innovation chain. Under the bad actor framework, basic researchers frequently claim their scientific investigations are purely theoretical, premature, and ethically neutral; engineers and software developers assert that they simply construct technical capabilities without controlling their eventual societal applications; and end-users are positioned as the sole responsible agents, with hostile actors bearing complete culpability for negative consequences. Citing philosophical arguments from Langdon Winner and Madeleine Akrich, the paper counters that technical artifacts are never neutral tools, but inherently embody political choices, institutional values, and social affordances. When developers position themselves as passive instruments of inevitable technical progress, they strategically insulate their design decisions, prioritization of commercial metrics, and architectural selections from democratic accountability, creating an ethical void where no participating institution acknowledges agency over the structural consequences of their work.

The third critical problem detailed in the paper is the overshadowing of the broader ethical reflection space, where the fixation on prospective malicious misuse crowds out critical societal deliberation. Drawing on philosopher Alfred Nordmann’s insight that ethical concern is a scarce societal resource, Mehnert argues that allocating attention and funding exclusively to speculative future security threats deprives present-day research of the capacity to address pressing issues of distributive justice, environmental resource consumption, and governance. Speculative ethics premised on distant threat horizons distracts public debate from ongoing development practices, turning ethical engagement into a defensive arms race. By treating the protection of high-value encrypted data as the paramount moral issue, existing frameworks prioritize technical fixes for organizations capable of affording post-quantum migrations, leaving wider structural inequalities unexamined and preventing researchers from imagining alternative technological configurations that prioritize social equity over elite defense.

To overcome these systemic limitations, the paper proposes replacing the bad actor paradigm with a comprehensive model of shared responsibility grounded in Value Sensitive Design, Responsible Research and Innovation, and Constructive Technology Assessment. Rather than treating ethical oversight as a reactive burden or an external constraint imposed after deployment, the author argues that recognizing embedded agency empowers researchers and developers across every stage of the pipeline to actively steer technological trajectories toward the common good. Reversing the familiar Spider-Man aphorism that with great power comes great responsibility, the study concludes that embracing great responsibility grants researchers the transformative power to challenge narrow commercial trajectories, deliberate on intended systemic consequences, and reclaim the ethical imagination required to construct just, inclusive, and democratically accountable quantum futures.

Subject of Research: Ethical frameworks and risk narratives in quantum computing development

Article Title: Beyond the Bad Actor Narrative: Reconsidering Ethical Imagination in Quantum Computing

Article References: Mehnert, W. (2025). Beyond the Bad Actor Narrative: Reconsidering Ethical Imagination in Quantum Computing. NanoEthics, 19(3), Article 21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-025-00487-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11569-025-00487-8

Keywords: quantum computing, technology ethics, responsible innovation, post-quantum cryptography, science and technology studies, cybersecurity narratives, value sensitive design, hermeneutic technology assessment, Beyond, Actor, Narrative, Reconsidering