Physics pioneers including 'Godfather of AI' Geoffrey Hinton win Nobel Prize

Professor Geoffrey Hinton, of the University of Toronto (left), and Professor John Hopfield (right) of Princeton University. Credit: AP

The Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield, who are considered to be pioneers of artificial intelligence.

The men were given the award for helping to create the building blocks of machine learning, which they said are revolutionising the way we work and live, but also creating new threats to humanity.

Mr Hinton's work has earned him the moniker "the Godfather of AI".

He is Canadian-British and works at the University of Toronto, while Mr Hopfield is an American working at Princeton University.

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“These two gentlemen were really the pioneers,” Nobel physics committee member Mark Pearce said. “They were the persons who did the fundamental work, based on physical understanding which has led to the revolution we see today in machine learning and artificial intelligence.”

The artificial neural networks they pioneered are used throughout science and medicine and “have also become part of our daily lives, for instance in facial recognition and language translation", according to Ellen Moons, a member of the Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Mr Hinton likened AI to the Industrial Revolution, saying it will have a “huge influence” on civilisation, bringing improvements in productivity and health care in an open call with reporters and the officials from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The Nobel committee that honoured the science behind machine learning and AI also mentioned fears about its possible negative impacts.

Moons said that while it 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 for the greatest benefit of humankind.”

Mr Hinton shares those concerns, going as far to quit his previous role at Google so he could speak more freely about the dangers of the technology he helped to create.

“I am worried that the overall consequence of this might be systems more intelligent than us that eventually take control,” Mr Hinton said at the Nobel announcement.

Mr Hinton said he was "flabbergasted" to have received the award, while Mr Hopfield didn't immediately respond to the announcement.

Nobel Prize announcements started on Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize for their discovery of tiny bits of genetic material. They serve as on-and-off switches inside cells that help control what the cells do and when they do it.

The physics prize comes with a cash reward of 11 million Swedish kronor (£811,000) as part of a legacy left by the award's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on December 10, which is the anniversary of Mr Nobel’s death.

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