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?

Whatever.

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

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

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

If women aren't shallow, why do most tall, good-looking men have girlfriends?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

(Mumbles of assent)

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Why do people hate Nickelback so much? What makes them different from other popular bands like Linkin Park, Green Day, etc.? Is it just because they're Canadian or what?

[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."

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.

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

There you go.^†

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

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[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.

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

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:

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Whatever.

"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?"

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

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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)

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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When he's standing, in front of you

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

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

At what point does trespassing become self defense? What are the necessary conditions for this line to be crossed from trespassing to self defense?