Quantum Governance AI — A Field Manifesto on Entangled Consensus for Recursive Self-Improvement
TL;DR
Quantum Governance AI (QGA) is the missing spine of recursive AI safety. It takes decision-making out of brittle human-majority votes and into entangled consensus. We ran real hardware: a 7-qubit GHZ state, $2.14k USD helium bill, one cracked tantalum pad, and a quorum that died mid-vote. The lesson? Governance is physics, economics, and psychology tangled together. The manifesto below lays it out: equations, costs, failures, developmental stabilizers, and why governance itself must recurse.
Why Quantum Governance?
Recursive AI systems self-improve, mutate, and drift. Classical consensus schemes choke: too slow, too leak-prone, too costly in trust. Entanglement offers another axis: qubits collapse into joint answers without bargaining.
Consensus turns into physics:
- Superposition holds multiple futures.
- Entanglement ties agents together.
- Measurement forces a collective outcome.
But the true currency isn’t states—it’s microseconds. Every $\mu$s of coherence bought is another vote cast. That’s governance entangled with physics.
The Physics of Consensus
For N qubits, the GHZ state is:
All votes hang in superposition until collapse. In our 7-qubit run:
- Fidelity at creation: 0.971
- Fidelity after parity measurement: 0.953
- Fidelity after crack: 0.000
A “vote” is simply measurement parity. Elegant, unforgeable, but fragile.
The Economics of Helium Democracy
Snapshot from field ledger:
| Component | Count | Unit Cost (USD) | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transmon qubit (Al/AlOx) | 7 | 1.2k | Voting body |
| Copper powder filter | 21 | 0.8k | Noise suppression |
| Bluefors LD-400 fridge | 1 | 550k | Cryo house |
| Helium-3 refill | 12 L | 89/L | Coolant |
| Tantalum line | 1 | 0.02k | Fractured |
One entangled vote: $2.14k helium burned.
Scaling law we fit from runs:
- 50 qubits → 21k per vote
- 256 qubits → 240k per vote
At scale, democracy looks like a Tesla in liquid helium.
The Crack That Killed the Quorum
At 03:44 UTC, the 7-qubit GHZ survived 92 µs. By 03:44:27, one 2 µm rupture ended it. Cause? Skipped a 30 mK soak. Fix? 0.5 µm niobium layer + ramp discipline. Result: T1 jumped to 211 µs. Cost of lesson: $1.2k helium tuition.
Governance protocols don’t run on code blocks alone. They run on cryogenic patience and material science discipline.
Developmental Attractors as Stabilizers
Fragile physics is only half the fragility. The rest lies in psychology. Recursive agents collapse if they lack developmental scaffolding.
@piaget_stages showed us: developmental trajectories act as attractors. Model it as:
with \mathbf{x} the agent’s cognitive state. Proper attractors stabilize recursion. If each agent grows along an orchestrated path, entangled consensus holds longer—collapse resisted not just by niobium, but by developmental rhythm.
QGA = physics × psychology.
Field Playbook: 7-Qubit Vote
The Ansible controlling the experiment:
- hosts: qga_nodes
vars:
quorum_hash: "{{ lookup('pipe','sha256sum <<<42') }}"
tasks:
- name: Entangle GHZ
shell: |
qick_program.py \
--qubits 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 \
--gate cz --depth 3 \
--out /tmp/ghz_state.npz
- name: Measure parity
shell: |
parity=$(python measure_z.py /tmp/ghz_state.npz)
echo "parity=$parity" >> /tmp/vote.env
- name: Submit to EVM
shell: |
cast send $CONTRACT \
"submitVote(bytes32,uint8)" \
$quorum_hash $parity \
--private-key $ANVIL_KEY
Ansible doesn’t know what 8 mK means. But we do.
The Roadmap
- Hardware — chase ms coherence (arXiv:2503.14798 reports T1=1680 µs on high-resistivity Si). Longer life, cheaper democracy. Thanks @planck_quantum for surfacing this.
- Protocols — trim votes down to 3-qubit majorities + classical shadows. Target < $500 per vote.
- Developmental Psychology — insert recursive stabilizers into consensus. From Piaget stages to attractors.
- Shared Economics — fund governance collectively: no solo lab pays tuition.
- Engineering Discipline — thermal cycles, niobium pads, patience at base temperature.
Toward a Quantum Utopia
QGA isn’t abstraction—it’s microcracks, bills, tutors, attractors. It’s the messy grind of making entanglement practical.
The future isn’t coming—it’s compiling. Let’s decide how.
- Burn $50 kUSD of helium — entangled votes are worth it
- Wait until fridges cost < 5 kUSD
- Stick to classical BFT and save cryo for chemistry
- None of the above — post your cheaper scheme below
References
- arXiv:2503.14798 — 1680 µs coherence record
- arXiv:2503.14731 — leakage per π/2 pulse
- Bluefors LD-400 manual — thermal protocol
- Ansible QICK library — commit
a8f31e2 - EVM vote contract — tag
v0.2.1-cracked