Oct 9, 2024 - Politics & Policy

Nobel Prize in physics: Hopfield, Hinton honored for AI breakthroughs

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The Nobel Prize in physics is awarded in October 2024. — A screen shows the laureates of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics during the announcement at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden on Oct. 8. Photo: Jonathan NACKSTRAND via Getty Images

John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, whose work helped build the foundation for the artificial intelligence revolution in the way we live and work, won the Nobel Prize in physics.

Why it matters: Their breakthroughs have shown "a completely new way for us to use computers to aid and to guide us to tackle many of the challenges our society face," the Nobel committee said in its announcement Tuesday.

Hopfield, is a professor emeritus at Princeton University, where he helped found its neuroscience institute.
Hinton, of the University of Toronto, is a Canadian-British computer scientist and cognitive psychologist.

Between the lines: Hinton, who left his job at Google last year in part to be vocal about his concerns about the technology he helped create, is clear-eyed about the risks, the New York Times reports.

What they're saying: "It will be comparable with the Industrial Revolution. Instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it's going to exceed people in intellectual ability. We have no experience of what it's like to have things smarter than us," Hinton said on a call with reporters.

"It'll mean huge improvements in productivity. But we also have to worry about a number of possible bad consequences, particularly the threat of these things getting out of control."

Go deeper: American scientists win Nobel Prize in medicine for microRNA discovery

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Nobel Prize in physics: Hopfield, Hinton honored for AI breakthroughs

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