161–170 of 876 posts
"This year’s laureates used tools from physics to construct methods that helped lay the foundation for today’s powerful machine learning." Does this mean if I'd use a deep understanding of birds to design way more aerodynamic airplanes, I could get the Nobel prize in physiology/medicine? Don't get me wrong, their work is probably prize worthy, but shouldn't the Nobel prize in physics be awarded for discoveries in the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It feels a bit like the field of physics claiming the invention of AI, where we all know that mathematics and/or CS deserve the honor.
>where we all know that mathematics and/or CS deserve the honor Or semiconductor manufacturers. All the math and CS needed for AI can fit on a napkin, and had been known for 200+ years. It's the extreme scaling enabled by semiconductor science that really makes the difference.
(When the required math was invented is a different question, but I doubt all of it was known 200 years ago.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It feels a bit like the field of physics claiming the invention of AI, where we all know that mathematics and/or CS deserve the honor.
>where we all know that mathematics and/or CS deserve the honor Or semiconductor manufacturers. All the math and CS needed for AI can fit on a napkin, and had been known for 200+ years. It's the extreme scaling enabled by semiconductor science that really makes the difference.
Computer science wasn’t even a thing 100 years ago.
[flagged]
This is such a tired reply. The peace prize is not part of the same group as the other awards, and a significant difference in the peace award is that intent is awarded not results. The dude who invented the MAD doctrine did not get the award despite nuke deterrance doctrice being related to the least amount of wars in any century since WW2. But his platform of deescalation and his plans for american foregin diplomac…
No, he didn't win the award, because MAD doctrine (aside from it being immoral) doesn't actually work in the real world.
It's an idealized model based on game theory, which doesn't deal with pesky complexities such as irrationality, salami tactics, short-range CBMs, anti-missile defenses, tactical nukes and so on. (That's why many of these things used to be banned by treaties, to continue to pretend that MAD is actually required for peace. In reality many nations do not have nukes and live in peace.)
[1] https://github.com/milosgajdos/gopfield [2] https://cybernetist.com/2017/03/12/hopfield-networks-in-go/
As a physicist, my reaction to this is how bizarre is that. Maybe he deserves a nobel prize but in physics? Also arguing that NN is used in physics so we can argue nobel prize is okay is like asking for Stephan Wolfram to be awarded Nobel prize for Mathematica which is much more used in physics as a tool. And he is a physicist and had contributions to the field of numerical relativity (The reason he created Mathemati…
It feels a bit like the field of physics claiming the invention of AI, where we all know that mathematics and/or CS deserve the honor.
I think this is the Royal Academy of Sciences way to admit that Physics as a research subject has ground to a halt. String theory suffocated theoretical high energy physics for nearly half a century with nothing to show for it, and a lot of other areas of fundamental physics are kind of done.
Max Planck was told by his professor to not go into Physics because "almost everything is already discovered". Planck said he didn't want to discover anything, just learn the fundamentals.
I've always sided with Feynman on this, and this proves him right: wtf do these people think they are appointing themselves fit to hand out trinkets and baubles on behalf of global scientific achievement? It brings the award into disrepute, or at least in a Feynman way, exposes the inherent disreputability of awards themselves: who are they to award such a prize on behalf of physics? Awards committees: self-serving s…
Altough of course you're right, let's play devil's advocate an imagine a world without Nobel prices. Laypeople needs a simple way to know who's who in advanced research fields, without Nobel prices (or any other commitee) we don't get to have that. If people gets to ignore (more) such topics, it's likely politicians, and universities react accordingly, and funnel funds to other enterprises. All these prices (I'd say…
As a point of comparison, there are ~540 premier league football players, with an average salary of 3.5 million pounds. (Yes, that's average, not median, but there's less than 20 of them that earn under 200k.) It's not _that_ exclusive of a club, and the remuneration is insanely disproportionate, compared to academics - I highly doubt there are hundreds of researches earning millions.
So, yes, it's pretty odd to have some random people dish out these prizes, and they are a drop in the pond. However, I personally feel it's way too little, and that the targets of the prizes are far more deserving - even if it's a popularity contest - than random entertainers (even if they are quite entertaining). But, it's up for argument, and the markets obviously don't seem to agree with me.
Next: Authors of "Attention is all you need" paper get Nobel Prize in Literature for writing one of the most read papers in past decade.