From “Quantum Physicists Show a Small Amount of Randomness Can Be Amplified Without Limit,” (ScienceDaily, May 16, 2012), we learn,
Classical physics is deterministic: for example, we can determine the position and velocity of a particle at any time in the future. Quantum theory, on the other hand, states that there exist processes which are fundamentally random: for instance, the outcomes of measurements of quantum particles seem to be determined entirely by chance. This is why Einstein argued in a publication in 1935 that the quantum theory is incomplete, and yet another kind of higher theory must exist, but up to the present time there has been no proof either that the world is purely deterministic and all randomness is due solely to a lack of knowledge about certain events, or that everything happens purely by chance. However, ETH Zurich physicists have now succeeded in showing in a thought experiment that randomness can be amplified.
The scientists’ calculations showed that the quantum correlation between the bits can be so strong that they cannot be correlated with anything existing previously. This means that the results are completely random, whereas only weak randomness is needed for the choice of the measurement.
The two scientists stress that they have not thereby proved that the world is non-deterministic. However, they say there is nothing in between. The existence of weak randomness automatically implies that there must be an unlimited amount of strong randomness. However, Colbeck says it is first of all necessary to achieve a particular “randomness threshold”: “Our method allows randomness to be amplified once a certain threshold has been reached. It would now be interesting to know whether this threshold can be made arbitrarily small by using improved methods.” This would then mean that an arbitrarily small amount of indetermisism would be sufficient to generate an unlimited amount of randomness.
At the least, the thought experiment would make for some good science fiction premises.