Hinton: "Having the Nobel Prize could mean that people will take me more seriously."
Interviewer: "Take you more seriously when you warn of future dangers?"
Hinton: "Yes."
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]
#732Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never heard that it had to be tied to experimental discoveries. For example, Feynman got the prize for Feynman diagrams, path integrals and QED calculations. None of that directly tied to experimental work. It has definitely been awarded for both theoretical and experimental contributions throughout its history. Many theoretical physicists have received the prize for their conceptual breakthroughs, even without…
That was the reasoning given when Einstein won his prize for the photoelectric effect, not relativity (although the reasons were actually fairly complicated: https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/the-dramatic-story-behin... )
That was relatively early and it had clearly changed later when they started giving folks like Feynman the prize for something that wasn't at all experiment related.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#733Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do physicists know the fundamental structure? They have some mathematical approximations that work for some measurements. They can make some predictions in some areas, but the same approximations break down in other areas. So the fundamentals aren't 'known'. Some think measurements is engineering. So are the physicist that focus on building an apparatus to measure a theory, they are engineers? So only the theoretical…
Physicists have learned quite a bit about the fundamental structure of the cosmos in the last 500 years. We can get into philosophical quibbles over what is knowledge and the relationship between approximations to reality, but we have clearly developed a very rich understanding of how the world works. A lot of the fundamentals are very clearly known. Entropy and statistical mechanics have been part of physics for 150…
Funny, on same day there is a post from this guy that seems to think the nature of reality is computation. That the fundamental structure is computation and cellular automata.
Maybe it isn't 'machine learning' but definitely the lines are blurring between physics and other fields of information.
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2024/10/on-the-nature-of...
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#734My perspective as a PhD in theoretical physics, who's been doing deep learning in the last 4 years: 1. The prize itself makes zero sense as a prize in _physics_. Even the official announcement by the Nobel Prize Committee, taken at a face value, reads as a huge stretch in trying to link neural networks to physics. When one starts asking questions about the real impact on physics and whether the most important works o…
Wdym physicics is stalled? I was told we just need to build larger collider's.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#735Well, the Academy did award the Peace Prize to Obama so this is not out of character.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#736Here is the reasoning: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2024/09/advanced-physicsp... I'm surprised Terry Sejnowski isn't included, considering it seems to be for Hopfield Nets and Boltzmann machines, where Terry played a large role in the latter.
Is this a widely accepted version of neural network history? I recognize Rosenblatt, Perceptron, etc., but I have never heard that Hopfield nets or Bolzmann machines were given any major weight in the history. The descriptions I have read were all mathematical, focusing on the computational graph with the magical backpropagation (which frankly is just memoizing intermediate computations). The descriptions also went o…
Restricted Boltzmann Machines were a huge revolution in the field, warranting a publication in Science in 2006. If you want to know what the field looks like back then, here it is: https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/absps/science.pdf
I remember in 2012 for my MS thesis on Deep Neural Networks spending several pages on Boltzmann Machines and the physics-inspired theories of Geoffrey Hinton.
My undergraduate degree was in physics.
So, yes, I think this is an absolutely stunning award. The connections between statistical entropy (inspired by thermodynamics) and also of course from biophysics of human neural networks should not be lost here.
Anyways, congratulations to Geoffrey Hinton. And also, since physics is the language of physical systems, why not expand the definition of the field to include the "physics of intelligence"?
From their official explanation page (https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2024/09/advanced-physicsp...): "With ANNs the boundaries of physics are extended to host phenomena of life as well as computation."
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#737I find the prize a bit odd this time since it focused on Hopfield networks and Boltzmann machines. Picking those two architectures in particular seems a bit arbitrary. Besides, Parisi got the prize last year (edit: actually 2021, time flies) for spin glasses. Hopfield networks are quite related. They could have included Hopfield & Hinton too, and it would have looked more coherent. It is also concerning that lately t…
The Nobel in Physics only goes with experimental discoveries, Peter Higgs didn't get his (deserved since the 70s) until the LHC directly observed the particle. I agree that Hopfield networks and Boltzmann machines are a surprisingly arbitrary choices. It is like they wanted to give a prize to someone for neural networks, but had to pick people from inside their own field to represent the development, which limited th…
And also why Einstein didnt get Nobel prize for his theories of relativity, but rather the 'discovery' of photoelectric effect.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#738Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because physics is currently stalled. Even if it's not completely true, maybe some introspection is required? I understand developing new theories is important and rewarding, but most physics for the last three decades seems to fall within two buckets. (1) Smash particles and analyze the data. (2) Mathematical models that are not falsifiable. We can be pretty sure that the next 'new physics' discovery that gives us…
> most physics That's an interesting definition of "most physics". I mean, I find high-energy physics as fascinating as the next guy but there are other fields, too, you know, like astrophysics & cosmology, condensed-matter physics, (quantum) optics, environmental physics, biophysics, medical physics, …
The corners of physics I have some contact with (climate/weather modelling and astrophysics) seem pretty dynamic to me. Each generation of CMIP models seems to be significantly better than the previous.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#739Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was probably considered since he is mentioned in the reasoning paper, still it could be one of those unfortunate omissions in the nobel history since those deciding the prize might have a hard time to measure impact.
Then they shouldn't be trusted to give awards in an area they are not experts in.
This is where passive voice highlights a weak position.
Trusted… by who?
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#740Earlier quoted context omitted.
One possibility is that they think this will access hype funding. Put "AI" in a physics paper and watch the grants roll in.
I kinda doubt it. The kind of people who end up nominating people for Nobels or even making the decisions on these aren't really struggling for grant funding.
But the system they have succeeded in optimises for people who can sell themselves well enough to get that funding. These people live and breathe selling themselves for funding. Every buzzword, sexy plot, and dynamic presentation has got them here and it's not like they plan to stop.