British-Canadian wins Nobel Prize in physics for AI development

A British-Canadian researcher has won the Nobel Prize successful physics for enactment processing the foundations of instrumentality learning and artificial intelligence.

The University of Toronto’s Geoffrey Hinton was awarded the prize Tuesday morning, on with Princeton University researcher John Hopfield.

“I’m flabbergasted. I had, nary thought this would happen,” Hinton said erstwhile reached by the Nobel committee connected the telephone Tuesday.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says the prize was awarded to Hinton and Hopfield for “foundational discoveries and inventions that alteration instrumentality learning with artificial neural networks.”

Ellen Moons, a subordinate of the Nobel committee astatine the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, says the 2 laureates “used cardinal concepts from statistical physics to plan artificial neural networks that relation arsenic associative memories and find patterns successful ample information sets.”

She says that specified networks person been utilized to beforehand probe successful physics and “have besides go portion of our regular lives, for lawsuit successful facial designation and connection translation.”

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While the committee honoured the subject down instrumentality learning and artificial intelligence, Moons besides mentioned its flip side, saying that “while instrumentality learning has tremendous benefits, its accelerated improvement has besides raised concerns astir our future.”

“Collectively, humans transportation the work for utilizing this caller exertion successful a harmless and ethical mode for the top payment of humankind.”

Hinton shares those concerns. He discontinue a relation astatine Google truthful helium could much freely talk astir the dangers of the exertion helium helped create.

Hinton said helium continues to interest “about a fig of imaginable atrocious consequences” of his instrumentality learning work, “particularly the menace of these things getting retired of control,” but inactive would bash it each implicit again.

The physics prize carries a currency grant from a bequest near by the award’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.

— with files from The Associated Press.