John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for discoveries and inventions that formed the building blocks of artificial intelligence. "Although computers cannot think, machines can now mimic functions such as memory and learning. This year's laureates in physics have helped make this possible," the Nobel Committee said. Hopfield's research is carried out at Princeton University, while Hinton now works at the University of Toronto, per the AP. While the committee honored the science behind machine learning and artificial intelligence, Ellen Moons, a Nobel Committee member, also mentioned its flipside, saying that "while machine learning has enormous benefits, its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future. Collectively, humans carry the responsibility for using this new technology in a safe and ethical way."
Hinton shares those concerns. He quit a job at Google so he could more freely speak about the dangers of the technology he helped create. On Tuesday, he said he was shocked at the honor. "I'm flabbergasted. I had, no idea this would happen," he said when reached by the Nobel committee on the phone. Hinton said he continues to worry "about a number of possible bad consequences'' of his machine learning work, "particularly the threat of these things getting out of control," but still would do it all over again. Moons said that such networks have been used to advance research in physics and "have also become part of our daily lives, for instance in facial recognition and language translation."
Six days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize for their discovery of microRNA, tiny bits of genetic material that serve as on and off switches inside cells that help control what the cells do and when they do it. The physics prize carries a cash award of $1 million from a bequest left by the award's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. Nobel announcements continue with the chemistry physics prize on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday, and the economics award on Oct. 14.
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