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?

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

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.

[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.

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Whatever.

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

When he's standing, in front of you

Why do I get stressed when I go to bed?

"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?"

[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."

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

Why are you a Muslim? Why is it Islam for you and not something else?

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

What was your first trans experience like?

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

Why do people who aren't trans feel the need to put pronouns next to their name or picture? It seems so cringeworthy to me, to participate in that SJW paradigm of thought, like they are a spineless person who just goes along with the trends.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

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:

Where are the big girls? This is the first time I've seen a bigger lady boy and that's awesome .. you should post more of them here, nothing wrong with a thick black lady

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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

There you go.^†

My ex got into a relationship within 2 weeks after a breakup. What should I do?

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

(Mumbles of assent)

Whatever.

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

‘Godfather’ of AI Yoshua Bengio says latest models lie to users - Financial Times