“The Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton and Princeton University scientist John Hopfield win the Nobel Prize in Physics

A Canadian scientist who once warned that artificial intelligence could “take over” Unless it was developed responsibly, it won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday along with a Princeton University professor.

The winners of the prize, the Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the two winners – John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “Godfather of Artificial Intelligence”.“ – helped create the building blocks of machine learning. AI is revolutionizing work but also pose new threats to humanity, Hinton said.

Ellen Moons, a member of the Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the two laureates had “used fundamental concepts in statistical physics to design artificial neural networks that act as associative memories and find patterns in large data sets.”

She said such networks are used to advance research in physics and “have also become part of our daily lives, for example in facial recognition and language translation.”

While the committee acknowledged the science behind machine learning and AI, Moons also mentioned the downside: “While machine learning has tremendous benefits, its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future. Together, people share the responsibility for using this new technology in a safe and ethical manner for the greatest benefit of humanity.”

Hinton shares these concerns. He quit a job at Google This allowed him to speak more freely about the dangers of the technology he helped develop.

On Tuesday, he said he was shocked by the honor.

“I'm amazed. I had no idea this was going to happen,” he said when reached by the Nobel Committee on the phone.

Hinton, a Canadian and British citizen who works at the University of Toronto, predicted that AI will ultimately have a “tremendous impact” on civilization, leading to improvements in productivity and healthcare.

“It would be comparable to the Industrial Revolution,” he said in the public conference call with reporters and officials from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

“Instead of surpassing humans in physical strength, it will surpass humans in intellectual ability. We have no experience of what it's like to have things smarter than us. And it will be wonderful in many ways,” Hinton said. “But we also have to worry about a range of possible dire consequences, particularly the risk of these things spiraling out of control.”

Hopfield is a graduate of Swarthmore College and received his doctorate from Cornell University. At Princeton, he is the Howard A. Prior Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences and Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biology. He also holds positions in physics and neuroscience.

Hopfield, who left Princeton in 1980 to go to Caltech, developed the “Hopfield network,” an artificial neural network that can find and store patterns in information in a way that mimics the brain.

In a 1982 article, he wrote about using a network with 30 nodes, similar to the brain's neurons, and a total of 500 parameters to track. He tried to work with a network of 100 nodes, but the computer he was using at the time couldn't handle it.

Compare that to today large language models like ChatGPT, which can use billions or even a trillion parameters.

“Thanks to their work starting in the 1980s, John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton helped lay the foundation for the machine learning revolution that began around 2010,” the Nobel Committee said.

Six days of Nobel Prize announcements began Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize for their discovery of tiny bits of genetic material that serve as on-off switches in cells, helping to control what the cells do and when they do it. If scientists better understand how they work and how to manipulate them, it could one day lead to effective treatments for diseases like cancer.

The physics prize carries a cash prize of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest from the prize's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. Laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

The Nobel Prize announcements continue with the Chemistry-Physics Prize on Wednesday and the Literature Prize on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the Economics Prize on October 14th.