Hinton (King’s 1967) and Hopfield were awarded the prize “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” Hinton, who is known as the ‘Godfather of AI’ is Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. He is the 122nd member of the University of Cambridge to be awarded the Nobel Prize.
This year’s two Nobel Laureates in Physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning. John Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.
When we talk about artificial intelligence, we often mean machine learning using artificial neural networks. This technology was originally inspired by the structure of the brain. In …