How did a computer scientist such as Geoffrey Hinton manage to win a Nobel Prize in physics when computer science already has its own Nobel Prize equivalent in the Turing Awards?

When he's standing, in front of you

"Hey guys, AI is pretty big so let's centre our prizes on it this year. We can get some attention, and it's all about advertising, at the end of the day, isn't it?"

They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.

Which fish tastes good for South Indian curries?

There you go.^†

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Whatever.

Have you ever been a victim of gaslighting? What happened?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"

"Naah, Linnainmaa is a Finn. Can't give it to a bloody Finnish mathematician. Let's go for drinks. Brännvin anyone?"

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My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Fortunately, we are privy to the discussion that led up to this:

"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"

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… then anything is possible. There’s no rule that a Nobel Prize has to make sense.^*

[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"

[Younger voice] "But wait a minute, Ising-Lenz goes back to the 1920's. And didn't Hinton plagiarise rather a lot? He also didn't invent modern backprop, did he, that's Linnainmaa? And Amari preceded Hopfield, too. That's not a good look."

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In awarding prizes, the Nobel Committees often seem only marginally more competent than MTG is at explaining meteorology. And if they can give a literature prize for lyrics like:

(Mumbles of assent)

In December 1973, when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, comedian Tom Lehrer dropped his mic and stamped on it—satire had just died.

Why are white men so obsessed with Asian women? I'm friends with people from all different backgrounds but I never see my other non-white male friends obsess over or talk about Asian women like I've seen the white ones do.

"Good point, I'm sure we can swing it. And let's tack on Hopfield while we're about it."

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"

You guys are talking about having sex with dogs. I heard a news man was trying to have sex with a female dog and got stuck inside. Is that possible? How does it feel inside a dog’s vagina?

Whatever.

You can have your cake and eat it too

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Why did Amazon initially deny leave of absence to Alexis Scott-Windham, the Amazon worker who survived the New Orleans terrorist attack?

^* Fibiger got the 1926 Medicine prize for the discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma (Don’t ask).

[The basic structure of artificial neural networks] has close similarities with spin models in statistical physics applied to magnetism or alloy theory. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes research exploiting this connection to make breakthrough methodological advances in the field of ANN.

A fly on the wall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

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