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

The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”, has caused me some surprise, although not too much. It is not the first time that a Nobel Prize has been awarded to an AI pioneer, as it was previously won by Herbert Simon (in Economics, which is not a 'classic' Nobel), but he had also had enough merits for it in Economics.

In this case, I think there is going to be some controversy, because we could actually consider that the prize is awarded, in a way, to a scientific advance, but also, or, above all, a computer science advance (Nobel, obviously, could not institute such a prize because computer science did not exist as such). That is, with a high component of engineering and technology; but I am afraid that, also, this prize could have been awarded because of the current social and media relevance of AI, which is dangerous if we are talking about a Nobel Prize.

Hopfield and Hinton are two pioneers of artificial neural networks (these networks, of multiple types, are the most fashionable branch of AI). Hopfield has pioneered a very original type of artificial neural networks named after him, the 'Hopfield networks'. For his part, Hinton (who had already won the Turing Award, for many the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science) has been one of the creators of the so-called “Deep Learning” or deep learning, based on complex networks of artificial neurons, which are the basis of such well-known systems as ChatGPT. In this second case, above all, the prize has been awarded to Hinton, but it could have been awarded to a wide (or very wide number) of researchers who have been key in the development of this technology. Many other pioneers of AI, specifically of artificial neural networks and their physical and mathematical foundations, even before Hinton, are thus forgotten by the award, concentrated in two people. It is not the first time that the Nobel Foundation awards a Nobel Prize to the creators of a technology while forgetting others, even the pioneering discoverers of its scientific basis.

I am afraid that we have media debate for a while and more for Hinton's continuous, controversial statements on multiple issues around the future of AI and society, which will now be analyzed with a magnifying glass.