A display reveals the laureates of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, US physicist John J Hopfield (high left) and Canadian-British pc scientist and cognitive psychologist Geoffrey E Hinton as Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics Ellen Moons (backside, sitting, from left), Secretary Basic of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Hans Ellegren and Member of the Nobel Committee for Physics Anders Irbaeck make the announcement on the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden on October 8, 2024. |Picture by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton and American John Hopfield received the Nobel physics prize on Tuesday for his or her pioneering work on the foundations of synthetic intelligence, with each sounding the alarm over the know-how they helped carry to life.
The pair’s analysis on neural networks within the Eighties paved the best way for at this time’s deep-learning methods that promise to revolutionise society however have 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 is perhaps methods extra clever than us that finally take management,” Hinton, 76, informed reporters after the announcement.
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Hinton, referred to as “the Godfather of AI”, raised eyebrows in 2023 when he give up his job at Google to warn of the “profound dangers to society and humanity” of the know-how.
In March final yr, when requested whether or not AI may wipe out humanity, Hinton replied: “It’s not inconceivable.”
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, informed 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 fast growth has additionally raised issues about our future collectively”.
“People carry the duty for utilizing this new know-how in a secure and moral approach,” she mentioned.
Hopfield, a professor emeritus at Princeton, was spotlighted for having created the “Hopfield community”, often known as associative reminiscence, which can be utilized to “retailer and reconstruct photos and different forms of patterns in information”.
The physicist joined Hinton in calling for a deeper understanding of recent AI methods to forestall them spiralling uncontrolled, calling latest advances within the know-how “very unnerving”.
“You don’t know that the collective properties you started with are literally the collective properties with all of the interactions current, and also you don’t subsequently know whether or not some spontaneous however undesirable factor is mendacity hidden within the works,” the physicist informed a gathering at his college by way of video hyperlink.
‘Exceed folks’s mental capacity’
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 with inventing “a way that may autonomously discover properties in information, and so carry out duties similar to figuring out particular parts in photos”.
“I’m flabbergasted, I had no thought this may occur,” Hinton informed reporters in a telephone interview because the laureates had been introduced in Stockholm.
Hinton mentioned he was an avid person of AI instruments similar to ChatGPT, and mentioned he believed the know-how could have “an enormous affect”.
“Will probably be comparable with the economic revolution. However as a substitute of exceeding folks in bodily energy, it’s going to exceed folks in mental capacity,” Hinton mentioned.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hailed his countryman’s accomplishment, saying “Canada is on the forefront of AI know-how due to trailblazers like Dr. Hinton”.
“His curiosity for discovery and contributions to innovation will encourage generations to return. On behalf of all Canadians, I congratulate him on his outstanding achievement.”
Nobel season
The Nobel Prize in Physics is the second Nobel of the season after the Drugs 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”.
The physics prize will likely 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 October 14.
The winners will obtain their prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1 million cheque, from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 loss of life of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his will.
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