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?

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:

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

Whatever.

Beyond The Hype: What Apple's AI Warning Means For Business Leaders - Forbes

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Whatever.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

There you go.^†

Padilla says FBI agent, Guard member escorted him to Noem's briefing before removal - Axios

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

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

What caused North Korea to go poor when at first it was rich?

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

[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."

Apple details the end of Intel Mac support and a phaseout for Rosetta 2 - Ars Technica

(Mumbles of assent)

"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?"

[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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When he's standing, in front of you

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Can an astrologer predict that someone is in a physical relationship before marriage?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

Week in Review: Perplexity Labs wants to do your work - TechCrunch