The Nobel prizes go to machine learning
Physics and chemistry are awarded in the same week for neural networks and protein folding.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 1 day
- Known to
- ± 12 hours
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
- Where
- Stockholm, Sweden · 59.3293° N, 18.0686° E
On 8 October 2024 the physics prize went to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for the foundations of artificial neural networks; the next day the chemistry prize went to David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for protein design and AlphaFold. Hinton used his platform to warn about the technology he had helped create. It was the first time the prizes recognised machine learning, and physicists argued publicly about whether it was physics.