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Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

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Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#281

Post by bjornsing »

Honestly it feels a bit weird with a Nobel laureate in physics who probably knows a lot less physics than even I* do… Makes me cringe a bit to be honest.

Also makes me sad when I think about all the physicists and engineers who have made the chips that can train multi-billion parameter neural networks possible. I mean the so-called “bitter lesson” of AI is basically “don’t bet against the physicists at ASML et al”. No prize for them?

(*) I have a humble masters in engineering physics, but work in ML and software.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#282

Post by lagrange77 »

I'm annoyed that he was awarded just now, obviously as a reaction to ChatGPT and the breakthrough of LLMs. If his work is worthy, it has been worthy many years ago.

This reinforces the reduction of ML to LLMs, just like the use of the term AI.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#283

Post by behnamoh »

rvnx wrote: post #229
chrsw wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my suspicion, yes.

The age too, and the fact that Google lost prestige in AI over the years. It's the company that didn't see the potential of Transformers, and that presented a half-assed Bard when LLMs were already in production in other companies.

But Hinton was not in favor of LLMs anyway, he argued backprop is not what the brain does and that we should do better than these models. I'd say Google would be a great place for someone thinking like that.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#285

Post by MeteorMarc »

lagrange77 wrote: post #282

I'm annoyed that he was awarded just now, obviously as a reaction to ChatGPT and the breakthrough of LLMs. If his work is worthy, it has been worthy many years ago. This reinforces the reduction of ML to LLMs, just like the use of the term AI.

Now,it is also too late for Kohonen, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teuvo_Kohonen

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#287

Post by jvanderbot »

raincole wrote: post #207
eterevsky wrote: post #158

To be fair, Nobel Prize has a history of expanding the traditional bounds of respective fields when awarding the prizes: Bertrand Russel got the Nobel prize in literature Daniel Kahneman got Nobel in economics

War criminials got Nobel prize in peace.

Which were you referring to?

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#288

Post by zmgsabst »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #172
zmgsabst wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think calculus existed at sufficient rigor 200 years ago. Computer science wasn’t even a thing 100 years ago.

Calculus has been around for quite some time. If Newton had the machinery to fit large models to data, he would have done so. No doubt.

Cauchy’s main work was under 200 years ago; and there’s been quite a lot of work since.

Again, I’m unsure that calculus existed at sufficient level 200 years ago — it didn’t appear in modern form from either Leibniz or Newton.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#289

Post by elcomet »

littlestymaar wrote: post #244
Separo wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the development of deep neural networks took direct inspiration biological neuroscience with neurons and synapses. Neural is even in the name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning

It was a source loose of inspiration for sure, but it still have nothing to do with neurosciences. “Neural” network are as close to actual nervous system as the “Democratic” Republic of Korea is to democracy.

You're mistaken. The perceptron was invented by Rosenblatt, a psychologist. This field has deep roots in neuroscience.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#290

Post by bjornsing »

aquafox wrote: post #6

"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…

> 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?

Yes I think it does. But those planes would have to create one hell of a buzz!

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