*

Prize awarded for work laying foundation for machine

learning

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Hinton quit Google last year to speak more freely about

dangers

of AI

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Princeton professor Hopfield created an associative memory

that

can store and reconstruct images

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Physics second award in this year's Nobel line-up

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Prizes announced through course of week

By Niklas Pollard, Johan Ahlander

STOCKHOLM, Oct 8 (Reuters) - U.S. scientist John

Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel

Prize in Physics for discoveries and inventions that laid the

foundation for machine learning, the award-giving body said on

Tuesday.

Hinton has been widely credited as a godfather of artificial

intelligence and made headlines when he quit his job at Google

last year to be able to more easily speak about the

dangers of the technology he had pioneered.

"We have no experience of what it's like to have things

smarter than us," Hinton said over the phone to the Nobel press

conference, speaking from a hotel in California.

"It's going to be wonderful in many respects, in areas like

healthcare," Hinton said. "But we also have to worry about a

number of possible bad consequences. Particularly the threat of

these things getting out of control."

Hopfield, 91, a professor emeritus at Princeton University,

created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct

images and other types of patterns in data, the Royal Swedish

Academy of Sciences, which awards the prize, said.

"This year's two Nobel Laureates in physics have used tools

from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of

today's powerful machine learning," the academy said in a

statement.

"Machine learning based on artificial neural networks is

currently revolutionising science, engineering and daily life."

The award comes with a prize sum of 11 million Swedish

crowns ($1.1 million) which is shared by the two winners.

British-born Hinton, 76, now professor emeritus at the

University of Toronto, invented a method that can autonomously

find properties in data and carry out tasks such as identifying

specific elements in pictures, the academy added.

Though he quit Google in 2023 after realising computers

could become smarter than people far sooner than he and other

experts had expected, Hinton said the company itself acted very

responsibly.

Hinton also said that he regretted some of his research, but

that he acted on the information he had at the time.

"In the same circumstances I would do the same again," he

told the Nobel press conference. "But I am worried that the

overall consequence of this might be systems more intelligent

than us that eventually take control."

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Asked about the concerns surrounding machine learning and

other forms of artificial intelligence, Ellen Moons, chair of

the Nobel Committee for Physics, said: "While machine learning

has enormous benefits, its rapid development has also raised

concerns about our future.

"Collectively, humans carry the responsibility for using

this new technology in a safe and ethical way, for the greatest

benefit of humankind."

Widely considered the most prestigious award for physicists

across the world, the prize was created, along with awards for

achievements in science, literature and peace, in the will of

Alfred Nobel.

The prizes have been awarded with a few interruptions since

1901, though the Nobel economics honour is a later addition in

memory of the Swedish businessman and philanthropist, who had

made a fortune from his invention of dynamite.

Outside the sometimes controversial choices for peace and

literature, physics often makes the biggest splash among the

prizes, with the list of past winners featuring scientific

superstars such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi.

Last year's physics prize was awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc

Krausz and Anne L'Huillier for their work in creating

ultra-short pulses of light that can give a snapshot of changes

within atoms, potentially improving the detection of diseases.

Physics is the second Nobel to be awarded this week, after U.S.

scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won the medicine prize

for their discovery of microRNA and its role in gene regulation,

shedding light on how cells specialise.

($1 = 10.3407 Swedish crowns)