Nobel Prize in Physics: John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton win the prize for “learning machines” and laying the foundation of artificial intelligence

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to those who have laid the foundation for “machine learning”, an important aspect for the development of artificial intelligence.

Professors John Hopfield (91) and Geoffrey Hinton (76) have been honored this Friday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for their “discoveries and inventions” that are “fundamental to machine learning with artificial neural networks”, the jury announced.

The names of the winners were read out from Stockholm (Sweden) by Hans Ellegren, Secretary General of the organization that awards the most important scientific awards in the world.

Hopfield is a professor at Princeton University (United States), while Hinton teaches at the University of Toronto (Canada).

,I am shocked“I had no idea this would happen,” said Hinton, who has been dubbed the “Godfather” of artificial intelligence.

The Secretary General of the Swedish Academy declared, “This year’s prize is about learning machines.”

Hopefield made an associative memory In 1982, which could store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data.

Hinton, for his part, developed a method that allows the machine to autonomously discover properties in the data and therefore perform tasks such as identify specific elements in images,

The work of scientists has enabled computers to mimic human functions such as memory and learning.

As? Using fundamental concepts and methods of physics, scientists developed technologies that use network structures to process information. Some of these structures are already used daily.

“Learning is a fascinating ability of the human brain”Ellen Moons, chairman of the Nobel Committee in Physics, said after reading out the names of the prize winners.

“We can recognize images and associate them with memories and past experiences. Billions of neurons that are interconnected give us a unique cognitive ability,” said the member of the jury, who indicated that “Artificial neural networks (developed by Winner) are inspired by the neural networks of our brain.

Moons assured that the work of the winners has allowed progress not only in astrophysics or the study of particles, but through technologies that are already “our daily life”. “Facial Recognition and Language Translation”,

Hinton’s research paved the way for artificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT.

The chairman of the Nobel Committee in Physics assured that the studies of Hopfield and Hinton “can help humans.” Make faster and more reliable decisions when diagnosing diseases,

However, he also acknowledged that they open the door to dangerous and risky situations.

This was already warned by Hinton himself, who resigned from his position as a Google consultant in 2023 after warning about the risks involved in the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

As soon as he learned of the award being given, the British-Canadian professor made a point of drawing attention to it.

“We have no experience of what it’s like to make things smarter than us”Hinton said by phone at the Nobel press conference.

“It’s going to be wonderful in many ways, in areas like health care,” he said, but then he added, “We also have to worry about a number of potential negative consequences. In particular, the risk of These things get out of control,

In an interview with the BBC, the now-honored winner made a dire prediction that sounds straight out of a Hollywood movie script.

“My estimate is that within five or 20 years, there will be a 50% chance that we will face this problem Artificial intelligence tries to take control of our lives“, Said.

The Nobel Prize in Physics also comes with a check for more than one million dollars.

Widely considered the world’s most prestigious award for physicists, the prize was created in the will of Alfred Nobel along with awards for achievements in medicine, literature and peace.

They have been granted grants 117 times since 1901 And the list of past winners includes scientific superstars such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi.

Last year, three researchers won the award for their advances in the study of electrons.

The award was given to the French-Swedish physicist Anne L’Huillier, the French scientist Pierre Agostini and the Hungarian Ferenc Krausz, who made permanent use of flashes of light. attosecond (one billionth of a second) to illuminate molecules and provide a brief glimpse of how electrons travel at high speed.

Australian William Lawrence Bragg, the youngest to be honored – at age 25 – for his work “Analysis of crystal structure using X-rays”,

For his part, the oldest scientist was Arthur Ashkin, who received the prize “for optical tweezers and their application in biological systems” in 2018 at the age of 96.

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