The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2024 was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton for their work in using machine learning methods (specifically, neural networks, a form of artificial intelligence) to solve physics problems.
Both my son and his girlfriend currently work in the AI industry (and my brother and my daughter both work in the larger IT industry), so this is highly relevant to me personally. The large language models (LLMs) used in my own industry, law, are getting dramatically better by the year, but are still not ready for prime time and are prone to making things up and reaching absurd conclusions.
The prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA, which helps determine how cells develop and function.
The Nobel prize in chemistry will be awarded tomorrow.
9 comments:
Surely Wofram deserves the physics prize as much as Hopfield and Hinton?
What would Wolfram get it for, Mathematica?
Yes! Obviously not for his personal ideas on physics which are not mainstream nor verified etc. But Wolfram provided physicists with a computational tool that has been *much* more useful and powerful (to date) than ML has been.
But they didn't award Hinton and Hopfield because ML is useful for physicists, they awarded it because their ML methods are loosely physics-inspired.
In any case, I think it's just "computer science envy" by the prize committee...
Even the winners were surprised by the award.
Hinton teaches at my alma mater so I'm thrilled.
Thats worse isn't it? e.g. Why did the Black-Scholes award go for economics and not physics then? You can point to many "physics inspired" impactful technologies that are not in any way progress in actual physics!
@Tez Fair point. I'm a bit surprised myself. I wonder if there was a split on the committee over more physics related nominees and this was a compromise alternative.
Stacy McGaugh notes that others with displeased with a physics award for something that is not physics. https://tritonstation.com/2024/10/09/a-nobel-prize-in-physics-for-something-that-is-not-physics/comment-page-1/#comment-23724
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