Two pioneers in artificial intelligence have been awarded a Nobel prize – despite one of them warning the technology poses a threat to humanity, writes Colin Fernandez.
Geoffrey Hinton, sometimes referred to as the ‘Godfather of AI’ said he was flabbergasted to win the physics prize.
Hinton, 76, is a professor at the University of Toronto in Canada.
He won the prize jointly for work on machine learning with Professor John Hopfield, 91, a professor at Princeton University.
Last year Professor Hinton quit working for search engine giant Google over concerns that AI posed an “existential risk… when these things get more intelligent than us”.
His pioneering research on neural networks – systems that are similar to the human brain in the way they learn and process information – paved the way for current AI systems such as ChatGPT which can learn from experience.
Professor Hinton said of AI last year: “It’s …