Yes, it was definitely a “stretch”. But I think it is cool that the physics community is recognizing the value of cross-disciplinary work. Thomas G. Dietterich, Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) School of EECS, Oregon State University US Mail: 1148 Kelley Engineering Center, Corvallis, OR 97331-5501 USA Office: 2063 Kelley Engineering Center Voice: 541-737-5559; FAX: 541-737-1300 https://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~tgd/<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.engr.oregonstate.edu%2F~tgd%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cai%40engr.oregonstate.edu%7C0b9dd16079ee45fea0e208dce87921d0%7Cce6d05e13c5e4d6287a84c4a2713c113%7C0%7C0%7C638640854151037075%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2FvFQwT2que%2BdfaTYfyDXriR4emUWnVj22NqR9D1vXp0%3D&reserved=0> From: Tumer, Kagan <Kagan.Tumer@oregonstate.edu> Sent: Wednesday, October 9, 2024 8:08 AM To: Dietterich, Thomas <tgd@oregonstate.edu> Cc: OSU Robotics Mailing List <robotics@engr.oregonstate.edu>; ai@engr.oregonstate.edu Subject: Re: Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024 Thank you, Tom, that’s a good one. And of course game theory prizes are AI-adjacent (Nash comes to mind). This said, what was interesting to me was the selection of the recipients and the wording. Hopfield is a physicist so that lends legitimacy to the committee’s decision, though the link between Hopfield networks and current methods is at best questionable. And the prize is for: “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks” If I were to speculate, I’d say they wanted to give a prize to acknowledge the impact of machine learning and this was the most “legitimate” way for them to do it. Still a great outcome for the entire field! Kagan On Oct 9, 2024, at 12:03 AM, Dietterich, Thomas <tgd@oregonstate.edu<mailto:tgd@oregonstate.edu>> wrote: Herbert Simon won the Nobel Economics prize, but I don’t recall how much his AI work was mentioned vs his work on organizations and psychology. Thomas G. Dietterich, Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) School of EECS, Oregon State University US Mail: 1148 Kelley Engineering Center, Corvallis, OR 97331-5501 USA Office: 2063 Kelley Engineering Center Voice: 541-737-5559; FAX: 541-737-1300 https://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~tgd/<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.engr.oregonstate.edu%2F~tgd%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cai%40engr.oregonstate.edu%7C0b9dd16079ee45fea0e208dce87921d0%7Cce6d05e13c5e4d6287a84c4a2713c113%7C0%7C0%7C638640854151037075%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2FvFQwT2que%2BdfaTYfyDXriR4emUWnVj22NqR9D1vXp0%3D&reserved=0> From: Tumer, Kagan via Robotics <robotics@lists.engr.oregonstate.edu<mailto:robotics@lists.engr.oregonstate.edu>> Sent: Tuesday, October 8, 2024 8:12 PM To: OSU Robotics Mailing List <robotics@engr.oregonstate.edu<mailto:robotics@engr.oregonstate.edu>>; ai@engr.oregonstate.edu<mailto:ai@engr.oregonstate.edu> Subject: [Robotics] Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024 Well, this is an interesting development: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2024/press-release/<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nobelprize.org%2Fprizes%2Fphysics%2F2024%2Fpress-release%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cai%40engr.oregonstate.edu%7C0b9dd16079ee45fea0e208dce87921d0%7Cce6d05e13c5e4d6287a84c4a2713c113%7C0%7C0%7C638640854151037075%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=boQejBJ%2B8qaORM7Zxu7FH0WhA4C9DjEywTY00H2xSaM%3D&reserved=0> Certainly, Hopfield networks and Boltzmann machines are inspired by physics, but at the root, this Nobel prize is for training neural networks. Might be the first truly AI-based Nobel prize. So, keep coding out there, you never know where it may lead! Kagan