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AI pioneers with ties to Google shared in Nobel prizes for

physics and chemistry

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Google faces competitive pressure and regulatory scrutiny

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Traditional academia struggles to compete with Big Tech in

AI

research

By Martin Coulter

LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters) - The award this week of Nobel

prizes in chemistry and physics to a small number of artificial

intelligence pioneers affiliated with Google has

stirred debate over the company's research dominance and how

breakthroughs in computer science ought to be recognised.

Google has been at the forefront of AI research, but has

been forced on the defensive as it tackles competitive pressure

from Microsoft ( MSFT )-backed OpenAI and mounting regulatory

scrutiny from the U.S Department of Justice.

On Wednesday, Demis Hassabis - co-founder of Google's AI

unit DeepMind - and colleague John Jumper were awarded the Nobel

prize in chemistry, alongside U.S. biochemist David Baker, for

their work decoding the structures of microscopic proteins.

Former Google researcher Geoffrey Hinton, meanwhile, won the

Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday, alongside U.S. scientist

John Hopfield, for earlier discoveries in machine learning that

paved the way for the AI boom.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, a computer scientist and advisor

on AI to the United Nations, told Reuters that, while the

recipients' work deserved recognition, the lack of a Nobel prize

for mathematics or computer science had distorted the outcome.

"The Nobel prize committee doesn't want to miss out on this

AI stuff, so it's very creative of them to push Geoffrey through

the physics route," she said. "I would argue both are dubious,

but nonetheless worthy of a Nobel prize in terms of the science

they've done. So how else are you going to reward them?"

Noah Giansiracusa, an associate maths professor at Bentley

University and author of "How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake

News", also argued that Hinton's win was questionable.

"What he did was phenomenal, but was it physics? I don't

think so. Even if there's inspiration from physics, they're not

developing a new theory in physics or solving a longstanding

problem in physics."

The Nobel prize categories for achievements in medicine or

physiology, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were laid

down in the will of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in

1895. The prize for economics is a later addition established

with an endowment from the Swedish central bank in 1968.

DOMINANCE

Regulators in the U.S. are currently circling Google for a

potential break-up, which could force it to divest parts of its

business, such as its Chrome browser and Android operating

system, which some argue allow it to maintain an illegal

monopoly in online search.

The profits derived from its leading position have allowed

Google and other Big Tech companies to outpace traditional

academia in publishing groundbreaking AI research.

Hinton himself has expressed some regrets about his life's

work, quitting Google last year so that he could speak freely

about the dangers of AI, and warning that computers could become

smarter than people far sooner than previously expected.

Speaking at a press conference Tuesday, he said: "I wish I

had a sort of simple recipe that if you do this, everything's

going to be okay, but I don't, in particular with respect to the

existential threat of these things getting out of control and

taking over."

When he quit Google in 2023 over his AI concerns, Hinton

said the company itself acted very responsibly.

For some, this week's Nobel prize wins underscore how hard

it is becoming for traditional academia to compete. Giansiracusa

told Reuters there was a need for greater public investment in

research.

"So much of Big Tech is not oriented towards the next

deep-learning breakthrough, but making money by pushing chatbots

or putting ads all over the internet," he said. "There are

pockets of innovation, but much of it is very unscientific."