The Nobel Prize in Physics 2024: John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton. They trained artificial neural networks using physics

P

pascal

Veteran
8 October 2024

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 to

John J. Hopfield
Princeton University, NJ, USA

Geoffrey E. Hinton
University of Toronto, Canada

“for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”

They trained artificial neural networks using physics​

This year’s two Nobel Laureates in Physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning. John Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2024/press-release/
 
Answer: It sure as hell ain't Physics. This belongs in Maths, but there is no Nobel for Maths (Fields Medal aside, but that's for younger people).

Even the Nobel Foundation is jumping on the AI bandwagon it seems.
 
Yes, I consider it rather disappointing that the physics award was "wasted" for this. Not denying they don't deserve acknowledgement, but Hinton already has Turing award which is more fitting to topic.

Also, my limited understanding is that the backpropagating neural network they worked on was contributed by many others, first published already in 1970 by Seppo Linnainmaa.
 
I feel good about this award choice for a few reasons:
- They deserve it
- Their work studies the intersection of mathematics, physics, and algorithms. They try to imitate nature, sometimes using the concept of energy.
- This award brings attention and credibility to AI from the general public, especially to what George Hinton has to say about AI. The Turing Award is obscure to the general public.

I think they are worried about the future impact of AI, so there is nothing better than giving these gentlemen a voice.
 
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024

with one half to

David Baker
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA

“for computational protein design”

and the other half jointly to

Demis Hassabis
Google DeepMind, London, UK

John M. Jumper
Google DeepMind, London, UK

“for protein structure prediction”

They cracked the code for proteins’ amazing structures​

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is about proteins, life’s ingenious chemical tools. David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2024/press-release/
 
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