Andrea Lopez-Incera

I am an academic staff member and PhD Student in the group of Quantum Information and Computation at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Innsbruck, Austria. Since 2021, I have taken part in the interdisciplinary project “The future of creativity in basic research: Can artificial agents be authors of scientific discoveries?”, which is supervised by Prof. Thomas Müller, from the University of Konstanz, and Prof. Hans J. Briegel, from the University of Innsbruck. This project aims at bringing together philosophy, quantum physics and AI to investigate the role of artificial learning agents in science.
Coming from the physics side, I develop and apply AI methods in various contexts, such as automated research environments or collective behaviour. Regarding the former, my research focuses on the development of artificial learning agents that autonomously explore scientific environments, as for instance quantum computation tasks, for which AI assistance could be particularly useful considering that quantum mechanics is a field where human intuition has historically failed. These investigations provide a natural, useful basis for the discussion and study of the foundations of AI-driven research.
On the other hand, I study behavioural phenomena from the perspective of artificial agency, with a focus on collective behaviour. Modelling simple animals such as bees or locusts as artificial agents opens up new possibilities to understand their decision-making processes, to discuss their agency attributability and to investigate the emergence of the collective performance from their individual interactions.
In my master’s thesis, conducted at the University of Innsbruck, I studied the stability of macroscopic quantum states and how decoherence and noise prevent us from observing quantum effects such as superposition on a large scale. I studied a B. Sc. in Physics at Universidad Complutense in Madrid, with a specialization in fundamental physics.
I am also passionate about the didactics of science in general, and modern physics in particular. As a side project, I develop activities to teach advanced quantum mechanics concepts such as entanglement at all levels.