Physics Nobel Prize won by John Hopfield, Geoffrey Hinton for artificial intelligence research
John J. Hopfield was awarded the honor alongside Geoffrey E. Hinton, a British-Canadian professor at the University of Toronto, in Canada.
An American professor and a British-Canadian professor won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their decadeslong, trailblazing research forming the building blocks of artificial intelligence.
John J. Hopfield, 91, was awarded the honor alongside Geoffrey E. Hinton, 76, who left his job at Google last year so he could speak freely about his concerns over the technology.
The pair are central figures in the creation of modern-day AI.
Since the 1980s, they have been using tools from physics to develop the foundations of what is known as “machine learning,” in which computers are fed masses of data to learn an array of tasks — from diagnosing diseases to knowing people’s favorite streaming shows.
Their research “formed the building blocks of machine learning, that can aid humans in making faster and more reliable decisions,” Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, told a news conference.
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