Quantum hocus-pocus

Abstract

The claims made in a manifesto resulting in the European quantum technologies flagship initiative in quantum technology and similar enterprises are taken as a starting point to critically review some potential quantum resources, such as coherent superposition and entanglement, and their dormant usefulness for parallelism and communication. Claims of absolute, irreducible (non-epistemic) randomness are argued to be metaphysical. Cryptanalytic man-in-themiddle attacks on quantum cryptography are well known to be feasible but hardly mentioned. If all of this is taken into account, a more sober perspective on quantum capacities emerges, but it may be ethically more justified than the 'hype and magic' that drives many current initiatives.