Nobel Prize in Physics: Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield win for machine learning breakthroughs

'Godfather of AI' one of two academics honoured by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Physicist John Hopfield (L) and computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton have been announced as joint winners of the Nobel Physics Prize. AFP

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "godfather of artificial intelligence", for "foundational advances in machine learning with artificial neural networks".

Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, announced the winners on Tuesday in Stockholm.

American Hopfield, an emeritus professor at Princeton University, created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data, the academy said.

Hinton, a British-Canadian professor at the University of Toronto, in the 1980s helped to develop a technique that has been instrumental in training machines how to “learn”, and has previously raised concerns about AI's risks.

Speaking at the ceremony in Sweden, Prof Hinton said he was “flabbergasted”, adding: “I had no idea this would happen. I’m very surprised.”

"I think it will have a huge influence. It will be comparable with the industrial revolution. But instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it's going to exceed people in intellectual ability."

He also said the advancement in AI would result in "huge improvements in productivity" but humanity had to worry about possible "bad consequences, particularly the threat of these things getting out of control."

Prof Hinton, born in London in 1947, spent a decade at Google but quit in 2023 to speak freely about the risks of AI.

In 2018, he was awarded the Turing Award in recognition of his research breakthroughs.

When asked whether he had any regrets about his work on AI, Prof Hinton said: “There are two kinds of regret – there is regret where you feel guilty because you did something you knew you should not have done, and then then there is regret where you did something that you would do again in the same circumstances.”

He said that he “would do the same again” but was “worried that the overall consequence of this might be systems more intelligent than us that eventually take control”.

Machine learning is a key component of AI – a technology that allow machines to perform tasks that mimic human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning and problem-solving.

"This year’s physics laureates’ breakthroughs stand on the foundations of physical science", the academy said. "They have showed a completely new way for us to use computers to aid and to guide us to tackle many of the challenges our society face.

"Thanks to their work humanity now has a new item in its toolbox, which we can choose to use for good purposes. Machine learning based on artificial neural networks is currently revolutionising science, engineering and daily life."

Ellen Moons, chairwoman of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said: “The laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit. In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties.”

Previous physics prize winners include Marie Curie in 1903 for her work on the discovery of radiation, and Albert Einstein who won in 1921 for his advances in the understanding of theoretical physics.

On Monday, Nobel Prize week kicked off when US citizens Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery of microRNA.

Their research was based around studying the make-up of a 1mm-long roundworm, known as C.elegans, which despite being tiny possesses cell types such as nerves and muscles found in larger, more complex animals.

Last year, the physics prize was jointly awarded to three scientists - Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier - from USA, Germany and Sweden respectively, who study electrons in atoms during the tiniest of split seconds.

The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by its creator, the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.

Nobel announcements continue with the chemistry prize on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on October 14. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on December 10th, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.