Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer of artificial intelligence, shared his surprise and thoughts in an interview with the New York Times shortly after learning that he had won the Nobel Prize in Physics together with John J. Hopfield. The award recognizes their foundational work on artificial neural networks, the technology at the heart of modern artificial intelligence systems such as Google Search and ChatGPT.
Hinton expressed surprise at receiving the award, particularly for physics, given the research’s connection to computer science and biology. He explained that while the Hopfield network and the Boltzmann machine, his and Dr. Hopfield’s key contributions, were rooted in physics concepts such as energy functions and statistical mechanics, current dominant artificial intelligence techniques, such as back propagation, they have less direct ties to physics.
He likened the Boltzmann machine to an enzyme, which is crucial for overcoming the initial hurdles of training deep neural networks, but ultimately not part of the final solution. While acknowledging the historical significance of his and Hopfield’s work, he emphasized that backpropagation, a technique to which he contributed significantly, is the driving force of artificial intelligence today.
Hinton confirmed that he had not collaborated directly with Hopfield but noted that one of his collaborators, Terry Sejnowski, was Hopfield’s doctoral student. student. He also humorously pointed out the lack of a Nobel Prize in computing, suggesting that his work might be more appropriately recognized there.
The interview also touched on Hinton’s previous concerns about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. He expressed hope that the Nobel Prize winner would give more weight to his warnings about the future implications of the technology. The award highlights the complex relationship between scientific discovery, technological progress and ethical considerations surrounding potentially transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence.
