Science & technology | The 2024 Nobel prizes

AI wins big at the Nobels

Awards went to the discoverers of micro-RNA, pioneers of artificial-intelligence models and those using them for protein-structure prediction

Collage composition with a Nobel Prize medal, surrounded by various scientific and technological images. These include a neural network diagram, a person wearing a VR headset, molecular structures, a landscape graph, and a coiled filament
Illustration: Javier Palma

The scientific Nobel prizes have always, in their way, honoured human intelligence. This year, for the first time, the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) has been recognised as well. That recognition began on Tuesday October 8th, when Sweden’s Royal Academy of Science awarded the physics prize to John Hopfield of Princeton University and Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto for computer-science breakthroughs integral to the development of many of today’s most powerful AI models.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Honouring intelligence”

From the October 12th 2024 edition

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