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

nobelprize.org

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

#301

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”. N…

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

#303
post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Just wait till you hear what they built with all the things we learned about atoms and energy in the 30s and 40s!

There was at least a credible story of fission/fusion for the benefit of humanity. Here, we know that AI is primarily used for target systems, surveillance, opinion manipulation, slop content, etc. If AGI ever succeeds it will be used for eliminating all knowledge jobs.

Nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. Do you think that systems like Lavender won't be used in the future? Zero chance.

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

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the economics prize is not 'official', it was established by the Swedish National Bank in honor to Alfred Nobel.

I see this written a lot, and I don’t get it. What matters for an award is that people recognise it as a prestigious accolade. The economics prize, while not “official”, is still recognised by everyone in economics as the highest honour in the field. Who cares if it’s “official” or not? Awards and prizes derive their value from their social recognition, which it has a solid amount of, at the very least.

One could even argue it has all of the benefits and less of the dynamite scent.

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

#306
post #222
post #205

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> His work is a net negative for the world. Bit early for this very Hacker News type blurt. Eg: Personalized medicine, predictive medicine, protein folding, climate modelling, smart grids, fraud detection, disaster response, food production modelling, etc.

Many of those are unfulfilled promises of the type that have been around for 30 or 40 years at least. And climate modelling: what's the point? You can't predict climate change from history. That's the whole point of the research.

So then wait until those promises have been fulfilled, as has so often been the case in Nobel prizes. Remember Higgs?

But the negative effects have been clear. Might just as well give the Nobel Peace Prize to Zuckerberg.

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

#307

Congrats to the laureates! Maybe a Computing prize should be created though, like Nobel did not create the "nobel prize of economy".Though you could argue that Computing is Math? What are computer scientists usually awarded with? edit: s/rewarded/awarded

I think there's some backlash against a google-able answer here. However, from memory the list of biggest awards for CS/Math are: Fields medal Abel prize Turing award Godel award

Kanellakis award too for theoretical cs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Kanellakis_Award
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