Geoffrey Hinton has spent recent years warning against the potentially disastrous effects of artificial intelligence (AI) systems he helped create if left unchecked. Now, the life’s work that spawned his ‘godfather of AI’ nickname has resulted in a Nobel Prize in Physics, one of the most prestigious awards in the scientific field.
Hinton was co-awarded the prize, alongside Princeton University’s John Hopfield, “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” A University of Toronto professor and British-Canadian citizen, he will see his name go down in history with the likes of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Werner Heisenberg.
“I’m particularly proud of the fact that one of my students fired Sam Altman.”
Geoffrey Hinton
“I’m still slightly in shock,” Hinton said at an Oct. 8 press conference hosted by the University of Toronto. “I got a phone call at one o’clock in the morning in California, I thought about whether I should answer it or not, and luckily, I decided I would see who was calling. And I was extremely surprised to get the Nobel Prize in Physics. I never expected that.”
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prize in Physics, said the co-winners “used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning.” Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct patterns in data, while Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, the Academy added.
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Some physicists expressed public skepticism about the tenuous connection between physics and artificial neural networks.
“If you still doubt that physics is in crisis, the fact that the Nobel Prize in Physics goes to computer scientists should make you think,” German physicist Sabine Hossenfelder said in a video on her popular YouTube channel. She added that the award shows how the Nobel Prize committee is “terribly behind,” because neural networks have been in use by physicists and other disciplines for decades.
“It just didn’t occur to them to award a prize for it until everyone was using ChatGPT,” Hossenfelder said.
Hinton did receive an outpouring of recognition from Canadian figures and institutions following the award, including the Vector Institute, where he acts as chief scientific advisor, the University of Toronto, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and fellow ‘AI godfather’ Yoshua Bengio.
Hinton has also previously won the Turing Award, known as the “Nobel Prize of Computing,” and been appointed to the Order of Canada.
Cohere co-founder Nick Frosst, one of Hinton’s first hires when he was at Google Labs in Toronto, told BetaKit in a statement it is “awesome” to see the decorated scientist “get the recognition he deserves.” Having now been part of a founding team that has raised $500 million USD at a $5.5 billion valuation, Frosst added that Hinton’s approach to science is a constant inspiration to himself and Cohere.
“He has done such an enormous amount for science and has been so inspired by previous winners,” Frosst said. It’s great to see his name up there.”
At the press conference, Hinton acknowledged several of his peers in Canada’s AI research community, including Yoshua Bengio, David Rumelhart, and his students.
“I was particularly fortunate to have many very clever students, much cleverer than me, who actually made things work,” Hinton said. “They’ve gone on to do great things. I’m particularly proud of the fact that one of my students fired Sam Altman.”
Hinton is referencing Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s co-founder and former chief scientist who left the company in May and now leads Safe Superintelligence, which is developing a lab focused on the safe development of AI.
OpenAI, which recently raised $6 billion USD, is reportedly undergoing a restructure that will see the non-profit transition to a for-profit benefit entity that will give Altman equity in the company.
Hinton made headlines in 2023 when he resigned from his post as a vice president and engineering fellow at Google to speak more freely about the potential risks of AI, his life’s work. Hinton has since signed multiple open letters warning against the “risk of extinction” posed by AI and its unfettered development.
BetaKit asked Hinton how he reconciles the award with his recent outspokenness on the dangers of AI. He said his advocacy for AI safety was also recognized by the Nobel committee.
“I think we need a serious effort to make sure it’s safe, because if we can keep it safe, it will be wonderful,” he added.
Frosst told BetaKit that, while they may disagree on some philosophical points, they agree on the importance of thinking about the societal impact of technology.
“His holistic and thoughtful approach to thinking about the consequences of this impactful technology has certainly affected my thinking, and Cohere’s, about building [large language models],” Frosst said.
Feature image courtesy Collision.
With files from Isabelle Kirkwood.