Princeton professor wins Nobel Prize in physics for AI advancements

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics to two pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence. John Hopfield, of New Jersey, and Geoffrey Hinton, of Toronto, used tools from physics to develop foundational methods of machine learning that help sort and analyze large amounts of data, according to the academy.

Hopfield created an associative memory network for saving and reconstructing images or other data pattern types that function like an artificial brain. Hinton used Hopfield’s network to create the Boltzmann machine, a tool trained to recognize characteristic elements in an image or dataset, the release explained. The AI boom is exceeding people's intellectual capabilities in the same way the Industrial Revolution exceeded workers’ physical strengths, Hinton said. AI advancements will make nearly all industries more efficient, but it's important to control the technology so that consequences don’t arise from misuse, he added. Doctors can use image processing AI tools to identify certain medical indicators on X-rays and MRIs, Nobel committee member David Haviland said in an interview.

How is a computer science advancement considered an achievement in physics? Hopfield’s network functions like an artificial brain with differently valued nodes acting as various neurons, according to the academy. It also functions on a model based on the atomic spin system, a concept in physics where positively and negatively charged atoms connect and move together, allowing for analysis. Hinton’s Boltzmann machine also functions on principles of statistical physics.

The Nobel Committee will honor consequential contributions to the field of chemistry on Wednesday. The 2024 Nobel Prize for literature will also be announced on Thursday, followed by the Peace Prize on Friday.

Dig deeper: Read my report on the medical Nobel prize winners announced on Monday.