U of T community watches ‘godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton receive his Nobel Prize [Video]

Faculty, students and staff across the University of Toronto’s three campuses gathered Tuesday to watch professor emeritus and artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton receive his Nobel Prize.

Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI,” was bestowed the Nobel Prize in physics by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at a ceremony in Stockholm, alongside co-laureate John Hopfield, a professor emeritus at Princeton University.

Nobel physics committee chair Ellen Moons said during an address that the pair’s work is considered to be fundamental to machine learning and called Hinton “a leading figure in the development of efficient learning algorithms.”

“He pioneered the efforts to establish deep and dense neural networks. Such networks are effective in sorting and interpreting large amounts of data and self-improve based on the accuracy of the result,” Moons said.

“Today, artificial neural networks are powerful tools in research fields spanning physics, chemistry and medicine, as well as …