The Nobel Prize committee recently awarded Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield for their "foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks." Their works have largely contributed to the growth of AI as we know it today.
Image Credits:Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP / Getty Images
Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield are often referred to as the Godfathers of artificial intelligence and have since the 1980s allowed the development of AI with the creation of artificial neural networks. The rise of AI that is popularly thought to have started when ChatGPT was unveiled two years ago is actually because of the decades of research on artificial neural networks, including the works of these laureates.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognises Hinton for his development in physics with the Boltzmann machine, a generative model built [as a stochastic extension] from Hopfield's model (1982) he developed with colleagues through 1983-1985.
Geoffrey Hinton's Boltzmann machine learns by processing patterns, which helps to classify or create images. And John Hopfield's Hopfield model uses physics to correct distorted images by adjusting connections and matching them to stored ones. Both of which have contributed to modern AI today.
Hinton's neural networks company was acquired by Google in 2013, and he has since been working at Google until he left in 2023. Part of him regrets his life's work, considering what AI could become with how far it has come.
“It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things,” Hinton said in the NYT interview. Source
Hinton recognises how his works and contributions to modern AI today are partly the reason bad actors would have yet another tool for causing harm, raising concerns about AI misuse. He, however, acknowledges that if he hadn't done it, surely someone else would have. Hence his reason for leaving Google to call attention to the dangers of AI.
People initially thought Hinton left to criticise Google, but he explains in an X post that "Google has acted responsibly" and his actual reasons for leaving.
“The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people—a few people believed that,” said Hinton to the NYT. “But most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.” Source
Geoffrey Hinton is a University of Toronto Professor Emeritus, and John Hopfield is a professor at Princeton University. They both share the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics for laying the foundations for modern AI.
"The laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit,” Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said in a statement. “In physics, we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties.” Source
Some of the benefits that come with the prestigious Nobel Prize include an 11 million Swedish kronor worth $1 million and a gold medal. Hilton said he plans to donate his part of the money to various charities.
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