Reacción a "Nobel Prize in Physics for Hinton and Hopfield for discovering the basis of machine learning with artificial neural networks"

Neural networks have been linked to the discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI) since their beginnings in the 1950s. Like AI, it has experienced periods of euphoria and others of stagnation, for example, it was necessary to have the backpropagation algorithm to allow them to learn. The idea is as simple as it is functional: to try to replicate a human neuron mathematically. One of the great breakthroughs in the 2000s was deep learning, where Hinton, together with other researchers, started a revolution that, to this day, continues to have an impact on us.

Hinton is one of the founders of deep learning. It began to be applied with great success in the automatic classification of images, later it began to be applied to sequential problems (audio, video, etc.) and has been continuously evolving to make the leap to the generation of content, with GANs being particularly well known. Large language models (LLMs) together with transformers led us to build GPT models, which we are all familiar with.

Today, generative AI and its potential are on everyone's lips. Advances in hardware components, large amounts of data and specifically designed and optimised algorithms have favoured this new technology. I think this is a well-deserved recognition, as all these techniques are based on neural networks. Personally, I was surprised by the news. The two award winners have been cornerstones in the development of neural networks andmachine learning. I see it as an award to all those who, in one way or another, have contributed to the advancement of AI and its positive use for our society.