Geoffrey Hinton, referred to as the Godfather of AI, and physicist John Hopfield gained the Nobel Physics Prize on Tuesday (Oct 8) for his or her pioneering work on the foundations of synthetic intelligence.
The pair’s analysis on neural networks within the Nineteen Eighties paved the way in which for know-how that guarantees to revolutionise society however has additionally raised apocalyptic fears.
“In the identical circumstances, I might do the identical once more, however I’m anxious that the general consequence of this could be programs extra clever than us that finally take management,” British-Canadian Hinton, 76, instructed reporters by way of a cellphone interview after the announcement.
Hinton raised eyebrows in 2023 when he stop his job at Google to warn of the “profound dangers to society and humanity” of the know-how.
The pair had been honoured “for foundational discoveries and innovations that allow machine studying with synthetic neural networks,” the jury mentioned.
Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, instructed a press convention that these instruments have develop into a part of our each day lives, together with in facial recognition and language translation.
Whereas lauding the potential of AI, Moons famous that “its speedy growth has additionally raised issues about our future collectively.”
“People carry the accountability for utilizing this new know-how in a secure and moral means,” she mentioned.
Hopfield, a 91-year-old American professor at Princeton College, was spotlighted for having created the “Hopfield community”, often known as associative reminiscence, which can be utilized to “retailer and reconstruct photographs and different sorts of patterns in information”.
“EXCEED PEOPLE’S INTELLECTUAL ABILITY”
The jury mentioned Hinton, a 76-year-old professor on the College of Toronto, used the Hopfield community as a basis for a brand new community: “the Boltzmann machine”.
Hinton was credited for inventing “a way that may autonomously discover properties in information, and so carry out duties comparable to figuring out particular components in footage”.
“I am flabbergasted, I had no concept this is able to occur,” Hinton instructed reporters by way of a cellphone interview because the laureates had been introduced in Stockholm.
Hinton mentioned he was an avid consumer of AI instruments comparable to ChatGPT, and mentioned he believed the know-how can have “an enormous affect”.
“It will likely be comparable with the economic revolution. However as a substitute of exceeding folks in bodily energy, it will exceed folks in mental capability,” Hinton mentioned.
“We have now no expertise of what it is wish to have issues smarter than us, and it will be great in lots of respects, in areas like healthcare,” he mentioned.
NOBEL SEASON
The Nobel Prize in Physics is the second Nobel of the season after the Medicine Prize on Monday was awarded to American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun.
The US duo had been honoured for his or her discovery of microRNA and its position in how genes are regulated.
Awarded since 1901, the Nobel Prizes honour those that have, within the phrases of prize creator and scientist Alfred Nobel, “conferred the best profit on humankind”.
Final 12 months, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to France’s Pierre Agostini, Hungarian-Austrian Ferenc Krausz and Franco-Swede Anne L’Huillier for analysis utilizing ultra-quick mild flashes that allow the examine of electrons inside atoms and molecules.
The physics prize can be adopted by the chemistry prize on Wednesday, with the extremely watched literature and peace prizes to be introduced on Thursday and Friday respectively.
The Economics Prize wraps up the 2024 Nobel season on Oct 14.
The winners will obtain their prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a US$1 million cheque, from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on Dec 10, the anniversary of the 1896 dying of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his final will and testomony.
