Military Science & Technology

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'Godfather of AI' shares Nobel Physics Prize​

Georgina Rannard - Science reporter
Graham Fraser - Technology reporter

Getty Images

The announcement was made in Stockholm, Sweden

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two scientists, Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield, for their work on machine learning.

British-Canadian Professor Hinton is sometimes referred to as the "Godfather of AI" and said he was flabbergasted.

He resigned from Google in 2023, and has warned about the dangers of machines that could outsmart humans.

The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

American Professor John Hopfield, 91, is a professor at Princeton University in the US, and Prof Hinton, 76, is a professor at University of Toronto in Canada.

Machine learning is key to artificial intelligence as it develops how a computer can train itself to generate information.

It drives a vast range of technology that we use today from how we search the internet to editing photographs on our phones.

“I had no idea this would happen. I'm very surprised,” said Prof Hinton, speaking on the phone to the Academy minutes after the announcement.

He said he was in a hotel with bad internet in California and thought he might need to cancel the rest of his day's plans.

The Academy listed some of the crucial applications of the two scientists’ work, including improving climate modelling, development of solar cells, and analysis of medical images.

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Geoffrey Hinton said on Tuesday that he uses ChatGPT4

Prof Hinton's pioneering research on neural networks paved the way for current AI systems like ChatGPT.

In artificial intelligence, neural networks are systems that are similar to the human brain in the way they learn and process information. They enable AIs to learn from experience, as a person would. This is called deep learning.

Prof Hinton said his work on artificial neural networks was revolutionary.

“It’s going to be like the Industrial Revolution - but instead of our physical capabilities, it’s going to exceed our intellectual capabilities," he said.

But he said he also had concerns about the future. He was asked if he regretted his life's work as he told journalist last year.

In reply, he said he would do the same work again, "but I worry that the overall consequences of this might be systems that are more intelligent than us that might eventually take control".

He also said he uses the AI chatbot ChatGPT4 for many things now but with the knowledge that it does not always get the answer right.

Professor John Hopfield invented a network that can save and recreate patterns.

It uses physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to atomic spin.

In a similar way to how the brain tries to recall words by using associated but incomplete words, Prof Hopfield developed a network that can use incomplete patterns to find the most similar.

The Nobel Prize committee said the two scientists' work has become part of our daily lives, including in facial recognition and language translation.

But Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said "its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future collectively".

The winners share a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor (£810,000)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65452940

When Prof Hinton resigned from Google last year, he told the BBC some of the dangers of AI chatbots were "quite scary".

He also said at the time that his age had played into his decision to leave the tech giant.

Earlier this year, in an interview with BBC Newsnight, he said the UK government will have to establish a universal basic income to deal with the impact of AI on inequality, as he was “very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs”.

He added that while AI would increase productivity and wealth, the money would go to the rich “and not the people whose jobs get lost and that’s going to be very bad for society”.

In the same interview, he said developments over the last year showed governments were unwilling to rein in military use of AI while the competition to develop products rapidly meant there was a risk tech companies wouldn't “put enough effort into safety”.

Prof Hinton said "my guess is in between five and 20 years from now there’s a probability of half that we’ll have to confront the problem of AI trying to take over".

 

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Previous winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics​

• 2023 - Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier for work on attoseconds - extremely short pulses of light that can be used to capture and study rapid processes inside atoms;
• 2022 - Alain Aspect, American John Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger for research into quantum mechanics - the science that describes nature at the smallest scales;
• 2021 - Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi were given the prize for advancing our understanding of complex systems, such as Earth's climate;
• 2020 - Sir Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez received the prize for their work on the nature of black holes;
• 2019 - James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz shared the prize for ground-breaking discoveries about the Universe;
• 2018 - Donna Strickland, Arthur Ashkin and Gerard Mourou were awarded the prize for their discoveries in the field of laser physics.

 

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Google DeepMind boss wins Nobel for proteins breakthrough​

Georgina Rannard .. Science reporter

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Demis Hassabis is a chief executive of Google DeepMind

British computer scientist Professor Demis Hassabis has won a share of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for "revolutionary" work on proteins, the building blocks of life.

Prof Hassabis, 48, co-founded the artificial intelligence company that became Google DeepMind.

Professor John Jumper, 39, who worked with Prof Hassabis on the breakthrough, shares the award along with US-based Professor David Baker, 60.

Proteins are the building blocks of life and are found in every cell in the human body.

Better understanding proteins has driven huge breakthroughs in medicine. It is used in solving antibiotic resistance and to image enzymes that can decompose plastics.

Prof Hassabis and Prof Jumper used artificial intelligence to predict the structures of almost all known proteins and created a tool called AlphaFold2.

Proteins are made of chains of building blocks called amino acids that each fold in a unique shape. Scientists had long struggled to predict the shape of each of the millions of proteins, but that structure drives what it does in the human body.

Understanding the structure is crucial to knowing how to target the protein and alter its behaviour, which is crucial in medicine.

The Nobel committee called AlphaFold2 a "complete revolution", and the tool is now used for 200 million proteins worldwide.

Before the pair starting working on the problem, just a tiny fraction of protein structures had been worked out.

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Proteins fold into unique 3D structures, making them difficult to predict.

The pair received one half of the Nobel prize. The other half was awarded to Prof Baker for what the committee called the "almost impossible feat" of building new proteins.

In 2003 Prof Baker used amino acids to design a new protein, opening the door to the creation of new proteins used in pharmaceuticals, vaccines and other tools.

He too used computer software in predicting protein structures, designing the Rosette programme in the 1990s.

Prof Baker, who works at the University of Washington in Seattle, told the committee shortly after the announcement that he was "very excited and very honoured".

"I stood on the shoulders of giants," he said, when asked how he had cracked the code of creating proteins.

He said he was sleeping when the phone rang, and when the announcement was made, his wife "starting screaming very loudly".

The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

The winners share a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor (£810,000). Prof Baker will receive half of the award, with the remaining half going to Prof Hassabis and Prof Jumper.

Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis shares Nobel Chemistry Prize

Three scientists share the prize for their revolutionary work on proteins, the buildings blocks of life.

www.bbc.com

 

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Who is Demis Hassabis?​

Prof Hassabis grew up in London with Greek-Cypriot and Singaporean parents.

He was a child prodigy in chess and reached master standard at the age of 13.

He completed his A-levels aged 16 and was asked by Cambridge University to take a gap year due to his young age.

Before and after graduating in computer science, he worked in computer game design, winning numerous awards.

He then completed a PhD at University College London, before working at several US universities.

In 2010 he co-founded machine learning company DeepMind that was bought by Google in 2014.

It aims to use neuroscience with machine learning to produce powerful algorithms that can be applied to a range of problems.

His work has won numerous awards, now including the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.