John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton have bagged the coveted 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for their path-breaking discoveries in machine learning which have changed the way we all use artificial intelligence in our daily lives.
Hopfield, a professor at Princeton University and Hinton, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto, share the honor, as announced by the committee on Monday. They have won a prize which carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million).
Hinton, who has been dubbed as the “godfather of AI” expressed his apprehension about how AI would be deployed in the future. As AI technology is deployed widely across workplaces and newsrooms, authorities and individuals have highlighted concerns around its misuse.
In an interview to CNN, Hinton was quoted as saying, “It (artificial intelligence) will be comparable with the industrial revolution. But instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it’s going to exceed people in intellectual ability. We have no experience of what it’s like to have things smarter than us.”
Hinton had earlier left his role at Google to speak out about the “dangers” of the technology he helped to develop. Hinton’s work on neural networks shaped artificial intelligence systems powering many of modern-day products. He worked part-time at Google for a decade on the tech giant’s AI programs but left the company because of his concerns about the technology and his role in advancing it.
