Pair win physics Nobel for machine learning breakthroughs

A pair of AI scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.

John J. Hopfield, a professor at Princeton University, and Geoffrey E. Hinton, a professor at the University of Toronto, used tools from physics to develop methods that became the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning, the Nobel Foundation said.

“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,” the foundation said. “This year’s laureates have conducted important work with artificial neural networks from the 1980s onward.”