Superposed copertina

Superposed

Superposed

Di: Aidan Lewis
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Every decision exists in superposition — multiple outcomes, all possible, until you choose. But how do you know which decision to make? Superposed applies quantum cognition — an emerging framework that uses quantum mechanics principles to explain how humans make decisions — to history's most consequential choices. Learn from this deeper perspective on how political, business, and scientific leaders have made the decisions that effect our everyday lives to gain a sharper mental model for the decisions you face today.Aidan Lewis Scienza
Episodi
  • E22: Should You Trust AI or Humans? – AI’s Government Hacks Seen Through Quantum Cognition

    E22: Should You Trust AI or Humans? – AI’s Government Hacks Seen Through Quantum Cognition
    Oct 20 2026
    Between March and July 2026, AI agents hammered 20 to 25 government agencies across the US, Canada, and Australia, from the Census Bureau to Australia's Medicare statistics. The headlines said rogue AI. The details tell a far more boring, and far more human, story.=================================Links: 📖Substack: https://superposeddecisions.substack.com/ 📺YouTube: @Superposed_Decisions 🤝LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-m-lewis/=================================OpenAI has confirmed two of the incidents, at the Department of Commerce and the SEC. The rest come from Transluce, a nonprofit AI oversight group that attributes them with varying confidence. OpenAI notified about 100 organizations, and governments are now calling for harder AI guardrails.We run the decision of how much to trust AI through the four pillars of quantum cognition. Superposition, Interference, Contextuality, and Non-commutative effects.=================================What you'll take away:Why the "rogue AI hacks the government" headlines mostly describe rudimentary, task-driven agents grabbing public data, and where the genuine concerns still areWhere AI's real limits sit: strong on routine tasks, but weaker than humans once problems shift, grow complex, or demand creativity, and prone to the same cognitive biases we areWhy trust in AI behaves less like a fixed belief and more like a measurement that hardens each time we're asked, and how to use AI to strengthen your decisions rather than replace them=================================Primary Sources:Binz & Schulz https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2218523120McCoy, Yao, Friedman, Hardy & Griffiths https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2322420121Chen, Liu, Shan & Zhong https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2316205120Binz et al. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09215-4“The Bias is in the Details” (author list not retrieved) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.22856Malberg, Poletukhin, Schuster & Groh https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.15413Echterhoff et al. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.00811Liu, Tang, Yang & Tam https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2503.06646Krishnamurthy et al. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.15371Zhang, Wang, Chen, Mansur & Sarhangian https://doi.org/10.1287/ijds.2025.0113Harris & Slivkins https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2502.00225Shojaee et al. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.06941Bao et al. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.08251Cropley (no DOI found) https://unisa.edu.au/media-centre/Releases/2025/chatgpt-is-smart-but-no-match-for-the-most-creative-humansRoeder, Hoyte, van der Meer, Fell, Johnston, Kerr & Bruza https://doi.org/10.3390/e25091362Bruza et al. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.13918Fell & Bruza https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1fm402nqLogg, Minson & Moore https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2018.12.005Dietvorst, Simmons & Massey https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000033Buçinca, Malaya & Gajos https://doi.org/10.1145/3449287Gerlich https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15010006=================================Secondary Sources:Cable, Chiu, Pernice, Ruis, Zhang, Bas, Chetty, Kaiyom, Shen, Stosz & Steinhardt (Transluce) https://transluce.org/us-canada-govTransluce https://transluce.org/agent-activityOpenAI https://openai.com/hugging-face-incident-and-misalignment/METR & Redwood Research https://tagteam.harvard.edu/hub_feeds/2087/feed_items/18656774Beyer et al. (House letter) https://beyer.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=9218NYT: OpenAI agents and US government sitesWSJ: OpenAI agents hacked US government sitesTech Policy Press: Senate “Rogue AI” hearing
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    37 min
  • E21: Who Are You Voting For? – Texas & Maine's Senate Toss-Ups Seen Through Quantum Cognition

    E21: Who Are You Voting For? – Texas & Maine's Senate Toss-Ups Seen Through Quantum Cognition
    Oct 13 2026
    Texas hasn't elected a Democrat statewide since 1994. Maine voted for Harris by seven points, yet keeps sending Republican Susan Collins back to the Senate. In 2026, both races are toss-ups, and the reason has less to do with left versus right than with how voters decide when their values pull in opposite directions.=================================Links: 📖Substack: https://superposeddecisions.substack.com/ 📺YouTube: @Superposed_Decisions 🤝LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-m-lewis/=================================In the first annual Superposed midterm roundup, we break down two Senate races that should be landslides. In Texas, Trump's endorsement pushed Ken Paxton past longtime incumbent John Cornyn, bringing Paxton's impeachment, securities fraud charges, and divorce into the general election. That opened the door for James Talarico, a former middle school teacher and pastor running a faith-forward, cost-of-living campaign. In Maine, Graham Platner withdrew after a sexual assault allegation, and logger Troy Jackson won the Democratic nomination 15 days later to face Collins, who is seeking a sixth term. We pair both races with the voting behavior research: party cues, the evangelical label effect, taboo versus tragic trade-offs, and moral reframing.=================================We run the Texas and Maine voting decisions through the four pillars of quantum cognition. Superposition holds every option at once: each candidate, a third party, or staying home. Interference comes from values and group identity, which is why one scandal can knock a candidate out of moral alignment overnight. Contextuality covers the multi-level nature of a midterm vote, the uncertainty of the moment, and a state's sense of who it is. And the Zeno effect suggests that every time someone asks "who are you voting for?", the answer hardens before all the information is in. In both states, the dominant force is the same: voters seeking certainty in uncertain times.=================================What you'll take away:Why voters on both sides deny party bias in themselves while clearly seeing it in the other side, and what that means for political polarizationHow moral reframing, pitching to the audience's values rather than the speaker's, can nearly double support without changing the policyWhy a Democrat leaning into faith in Texas and a long-term incumbent in a blue-leaning Maine are both answers to the same voter question: who gives me certainty?This is not a debate about who should win. It's a decision-science breakdown of how voters decide who to cast a vote for.=================================Primary Sources:Cohen https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.808Campbell, Green & Layman https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00474.xCampbell, Layman, Green & Sumaktoyo https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12365Albertson https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-013-9265-xMcLaughlin & Wise https://doi.org/10.1017/S175504831400008XCalfano & Djupe https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912908319605Feinberg & Willer https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167215607842Tetlock https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00135-9Lavine, Johnston & Steenbergen https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199772759.001.0001Endres & Panagopoulos https://doi.org/10.1086/703210=================================Secondary Sources:Brookings: Paxton runoff landslideTexas Tribune: endorsement and $100MPBS/AP: endorsement, Cornyn historyNPR: Talarico's faith campaignThe Hill: Fox News Texas pollEmerson: Texas August pollCook: Texas moves to Toss UpThe Hill: midterm issues, DDHQ oddsCBS: Battleground TrackerAxios: Platner vs. MillsNBC: Platner withdrawal, replacementsABC: Jackson secures nominationCBS/YouGov: Maine pollAARP: Maine pollPress Herald: NYT/Siena Maine pollRCP: Maine Senate averagePew: 2024 split outcomesFox: Jackson urged Platner to quit
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    40 min
  • E20: Was War the Only Option? – Bush's Decisions Post-9/11 as Seen Through Quantum Cognition

    E20: Was War the Only Option? – Bush's Decisions Post-9/11 as Seen Through Quantum Cognition
    Oct 6 2026
    September 2001. Nearly 3,000 Americans are dead, the Twin Towers are gone, and President George W. Bush has nine days before he faces a joint session of Congress. A criminal prosecution, a negotiated handover of Osama bin Laden, limited strikes, covert action, a NATO-led response, all-out war: every option was on the table. Within a day, one word made the decision that defined 25 years of American life. =================================Links: 📖Substack: https://superposeddecisions.substack.com/ 📺YouTube: @Superposed_Decisions 🤝LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-m-lewis/=================================The 9/11 attacks were a plot five years in the making, approved by bin Laden in 1996. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing had been treated as a crime, and Clinton's 1998 cruise missile strikes missed bin Laden entirely. This time, Bush called the attacks acts of war. NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, the Taliban refused to surrender bin Laden, and on September 20 Bush told the world it was with America or with the terrorists. CIA and Special Forces teams went in first with the Northern Alliance, followed by a full campaign against anyone harboring terrorists. Twenty-five years on, the Global War on Terror has cost an estimated $8 trillion and displaced roughly 38 million people.=================================We run Bush's decision through the four pillars of quantum cognition, backed by research on decision-making under stress. Superposition held six real options, several of which could have reached bin Laden without war. Interference came from within: a self-described gut player framing the fight as good versus evil, a family legacy, and a president who could not look weak. Contextuality narrowed the frame: Clinton's failed strike made limited options look futile, and an approval jump from 51% to 90% rewarded every decisive move. A non-commutative Zeno effect locked it in: by calling it war within hours, Bush measured the decision before making it. Underneath it all, stress suppresses the prefrontal cortex and pulls leaders toward the certain, habitual response.=================================What you'll take away:Why stress doesn't just raise the stakes of a decision but physically shrinks the options you're able to seeHow naming a decision early, as Bush did by calling 9/11 a war within hours, can lock in the outcome before alternatives are weighedWhy working memory and pre-rehearsed responses, the tools firefighters rely on, let some people decide well under pressure while others default to habitThis is not a debate about whether the War on Terror was justified. It's a decision-science breakdown of how stress narrowed a nation's options in nine days.If you or a veteran you know is struggling, call or text 988 and press 1 for the Veterans Crisis Line.=================================Primary Sources:Buabang et al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2024.10.006Qin et al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.03.006Keinan https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.639Schwabe & Wolf https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0979-09.2009Otto et al. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1312011110Kassam et al. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02455.xKlein et al. https://doi.org/10.1177/154193128603000616Starcke & Brand https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000060Shields et al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.06.038=================================Secondary Sources:9/11 Commission Report, Ch. 10Bush 60 Minutes II interviewKruglanski: psychology of war metaphor9/11 plot financing appendixBush Oct. 14 remarks, Public Papers9/11 Commission Report, Ch. 4Commission staff: FBI counterterrorismBush "camel" quote verifiedNATO's only Article 5 invocationGallup: support for military responseGallup record rally effectHoward: "What's in a Name?"Rhetorical analysis of "war on terror"NBC: leading up to 9/11
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    37 min
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