The two winners of the Nobel Prize in physics, British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton and American John Hopfield, appear on a screen as Nobel committee member Anders Irbaeck (d) gives a speech after the announcement of their award at Stockholm, October 8, 2024 (AFP / Jonathan NACKSTRAND)
The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded Tuesday to British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton and American John Hopfield for their respective work in “machine learning”, crucial for the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
The winners have carried out research in artificial neural networks since the 1980s, paving the way for the promises of AI, a technological revolution which is causing concern even among those who inspired it.
John Hopfield, 91, is a professor at the prestigious Princeton University.
Geoffrey Hinton, 76 years old and professor at the University of Toronto in Canada, is considered one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence. He announced his departure from Google in May 2023 to be able to warn of the dangers of AI.
The two researchers “used physics tools to develop methods that are the basis of today’s powerful machine learning systems,” the jury said in its press release.
They are distinguished “for their fundamental discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning using artificial neural networks”. These networks are inspired by the network of neurons in our brain.
They “used fundamental concepts of statistical physics to design artificial neural networks that function as associative memories and find patterns in large data sets,” said Ellen Moons, president of the Nobel physics committee, before the press.
These models “have been used to advance research in fields as diverse as particle physics, materials science and astrophysics, and they have become part of our daily lives” such as facial recognition and machine translation, she continued.
A bust of scientist Alfred Nobel, September 25, 2024 in Oslo (AFP / Jonathan NACKSTRAND)
Machine learning “has enormous benefits” but “its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future,” she acknowledged.
-“Amazed”-
The American Hopfield gave his name in particular to the “Hopfield network”, that is to say “an associative memory which can store and reconstruct images and other types of models”, according to the jury.
Hinton started from the Hopfield network to create a new network using a different method: “the Boltzmann machine”.
He thus “invented a method capable of autonomously finding properties in data, and therefore performing tasks such as identifying specific elements in images”.
“I am amazed… I did not imagine that this could happen,” reacted Geoffrey Hinton, contacted by the Nobel committee.
When asked about his favorite tool in the AI space, Hinton admitted to being a big user of ChatGPT, although admitting that he was concerned about the implications of the technology.
“In the same circumstances, I would do the same thing (his research, editor’s note). But I fear that the overall consequence of all this will be systems smarter than us which end up taking control,” added the researcher.
-“Powerful tools”-
As for Mr. Hopfield, the announcement of the Nobel reached him “in a cottage where he is staying in England,” Princeton University said in a press release.
Returning home after getting his flu shot, he was greeted by a “pile of emails” that he described as “stunning” and “comforting.”
Thanks to their work, humanity now has a new instrument in its toolbox, “which we can choose to use for good purposes”, stressed the Nobel committee.
How this work is used in the future will depend “on how we humans choose to use these incredibly powerful tools, already present in many aspects of our lives.”
Awarded since 1901, the Nobel Prizes recognize people who have worked for “the benefit of humanity”, in accordance with the wish of their creator, the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the Franco-Swedish Anne L’Huillier, the Frenchman Pierre Agostini and the Austro-Hungarian Ferenc Krausz for their research on light flashes which made it possible to understand the ultra-rapid movements of electrons. in atoms and molecules.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be awarded on Wednesday, before the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in Oslo. The Nobel Prize in Economics, awarded for the first time in 1969, will be awarded on Monday October 14.
The Nobel laureate wins a check for eleven million Swedish crowns (more than 970,000 euros).
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