ΑΙhub.org
 

Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry awarded for machine learning research


by
10 October 2024



share this:

©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

The 2024 Nobel Prizes for physics and chemistry were announced on 8 and 9 October respectively. Both prizes were awarded for work enabling or using machine learning.

2024 Nobel Prize in Physics

The physics prize has been awarded to:

  • John Hopfield – “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”
  • Geoffrey Hinton– “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”

More specifically, Hopfield is recognised for “inventing a network that uses a method for saving and recreating patterns”. This Hopfield network utilises physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to its atomic spin. The network as a whole is described in a manner equivalent to the energy in the spin system found in physics, and is trained by finding values for the connections between the nodes so that the saved images have low energy. When the Hopfield network is fed a distorted or incomplete image, it methodically works through the nodes and updates their values so the network’s energy falls. The network thus works stepwise to find the saved image that is most like the imperfect one it was fed with.

Hinton is recognised for “using the Hopfield network as the foundation for a new network that uses a different method: the Boltzmann machine“. The Boltzmann machine is programmed to “recognise” characteristic elements in a given type of data, and is trained on examples that are very likely to arise when the machine is run. The Boltzmann machine can be used to classify images or create new examples of the type of pattern on which it was trained.

2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

One half of the chemistry prize has been awarded to:

  • David Baker – “for computational protein design”

and the other half jointly to:

  • Demis Hassabis – “for protein structure prediction”
  • John Jumper– “for protein structure prediction”

In more detail, Baker was honoured for “using amino acids to design a new protein that was unlike any other protein”. Since then, his research group has produced more new proteins, including those that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and sensors.

Hassabis and Jumper are recognised for their model AlphaFold2 which is used for protein structure prediction. AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries, and “has enabled researchers to better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic”.

Find out more



tags:


Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub.
Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub.




            AIhub is supported by:


Related posts :



monthly digest

AIhub monthly digest: May 2025 – materials design, object state classification, and real-time monitoring for healthcare data

  30 May 2025
Welcome to our monthly digest, where you can catch up with AI research, events and news from the month past.

Congratulations to the #AAMAS2025 best paper, best demo, and distinguished dissertation award winners

  29 May 2025
Find out who won the awards presented at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems last week.

The Good Robot podcast: Transhumanist fantasies with Alexander Thomas

  28 May 2025
In this episode, Eleanor talks to Alexander Thomas, a filmmaker and academic, about the transhumanist narrative.

Congratulations to the #ICRA2025 best paper award winners

  27 May 2025
The winners and finalists in the different categories have been announced.

#ICRA2025 social media round-up

  23 May 2025
Find out what the participants got up to at the International Conference on Robotics & Automation.

Interview with Gillian Hadfield: Normative infrastructure for AI alignment

  22 May 2025
Kumar Kshitij Patel spoke to Gillian Hadfield about her interdisciplinary research, career trajectory, path into AI alignment, law, and general thoughts on AI systems.

PitcherNet helps researchers throw strikes with AI analysis

  21 May 2025
Baltimore Orioles tasks Waterloo Engineering researchers to develop AI tech that can monitor pitchers using low-resolution video captured by smartphones

Interview with Filippos Gouidis: Object state classification

  20 May 2025
Read the latest interview in our series featuring the AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants.



 

AIhub is supported by:






©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence