The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to American researcher John Hopfield and Canadian Geoffrey Hinton, nicknamed „The Godfather of AI,” for discoveries and inventions related to the machine learning process through artificial neural networks, according to the Nobel Committee’s statement on Tuesday from Stockholm.
This year’s two Nobel laureates in Physics have used physics tools to develop methods that are currently fundamental to the machine learning process.
John Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of models in data. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method for autonomously identifying properties of data, enabling tasks such as identifying specific elements in photos.
When we talk about artificial intelligence (AI), we often refer to the machine learning process through artificial neural networks. This technology was initially inspired by the structure of the human brain.
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In an artificial neural network, brain neurons are represented by nodes that can have different values. These nodes interact with each other through connections that can be likened to synapses and can be made stronger or weaker. The network is trained, for example, by developing stronger connections between nodes that simultaneously have a higher value.
This year's Nobel laureates in Physics have been actively involved in the field of artificial neural networks since the 1980s.
In 2023, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to researchers Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L'Huillier for "experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for studying the dynamics of electrons within matter."
The prizes will be presented to the laureates at a special ceremony to be held on December 10, the day of Alfred Nobel's death (1833-1896), the inventor of dynamite.
This year, the prizes in each category are accompanied by a financial reward of 11 million Swedish kronor (just over 1 million dollars).