Two AI pioneers won the Nobel Prize for their work in machine learning

Two artificial intelligence pioneers were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in machine learning, which laid the foundation for the current AI boom.

Geoffrey Hinton, also known as the “godfather of AI,” and John Hopfield were named as the 2024 winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday. Hinton and Hopfield, who both started their work in machine learning in the 1980s, were awarded the prize “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

Hopfield is known for inventing a network used in machine learning called the “Hopfield network,” which is used for storing and reconstructing images and other patterns in data using physics, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hopfield’s network was then used by Hinton as the foundation for a new network that uses statistical physics, called the “Boltzmann machine,” which “can learn to recognize characteristic elements in a given type of data,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

“The laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit,” Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said. “In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties.”

Last May, Hinton left his job on Google’s (GOOGL+0.60%) AI research team to talk openly about his concerns over the risks of AI.

“I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have,” Hinton told The New York Times (NYT+0.67%).

On Tuesday, Hinton said in response to questions about regrets over his work, that he “would do the same again, but I am worried that the overall consequence of this might be systems more intelligent than us that eventually take control,” Bloomberg reported.

Hopfield and Hinton will share the prize of 11 million Swedish kronor, or $1 million.