Nobel Prize Announcement:-
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has today decided to award a 2024 Nobel Prize in physics to Jon hopfield Princeton University USA and Jeffrey Hinton University of Toronto Canada for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks that was a big breaking news Jeffrey Hinton the winner of the Nobel Prize for physics for 2024 for that pioneering work that foundational work on artificial intelligence he and his co-winner John hopfield from Princeton in the United States being honored for helping lay the foundation for the technology that promises both fundamental change and portends an existential threat for Humanity and on the phone with us this morning is the no Nobel Prize winner in physics .
Jeffrey Hinton’s Reaction:-
Jeffrey Hinton from Pao Alto California Professor good morning welcome to CBC morning live and first of all congratulations thank you are you really in a cheap hotel in California as you told the news conference sir yes I’m in a cheap hotel that doesn’t have an Internet that works and um only has a poor phone connection oh my goodness so you haven’t seen the internet blow up with word of your your breaking news and the and the awarding of the Nobel Prize to you because there’s a lot of interest obviously and here in Canada it is tremendous can you tell us just the just the just the personal part to all of this in the middle of the night .
What happened did the phone ring in your hotel room can you take us through the chain of events um yeah my cell phone rang um and my first reaction was how do I tell this isn’t a spoof Call but the guy had a strong Swedish accent and the call was from Sweden um but I had no idea I’d been nominated for it I was completely flabbergasted I never expected to get The Nobel Prize in physics it could have been an AI scam you never know they’re very good now no I’m just kidding but that is a that’s a wonderful Mo so did you when you when you realize that it was for real how did you react my jaw dropped open and did you whoop in excitement or did you call anyone to share the news have you had a moment to do that here with my partner Rosary Gartner and yes we both got quite excited about it .
Acknowledging Influential Mentors:-
Just wondering too who you might have thought of is there some person who was important to you along the way was there a moment in your academic career that came to mind as you have been awarded really the top prize in your domain yes there were two people so um the people my two most influential mentors um there was David rumelhart who died quite young of a nasty brain disease and worked with him on an algorithm called back propagation that’s now what’s used in these big chatbots and there was ter sinowski who was actually a student of hopfields and worked a lot with sinowski .
On how to take hot field networks and make them more General and make them able to learn representations um so probably the most exciting research ter I had in my life was with Terry sinowski working on what we call bolmer machines which is just a generalization of hfield Mets you mentioned him in the press conference after the fact gave him an acknowledgement there as well so those are the people who came to mind as you celebrate this incredible achievement you know sometimes the Nobel winner.
The Rapid Rise of AI:-
Is a surprise to many but think your name will not be a surprise to many given how prevalent artificial intelligence is in our society is globally already and I’m wondering if could ask you about that as you were doing your research thinking about artificial intelligence did you think it would become so prevalent would permeate our world our life as quickly as it has no thought in the end if we could get this stuff to work it would be very important but thought would take longer to have this big effect and do you think it will continue to advance as quickly mean certainly they’re spending hundreds of billions alls in places like Silicone Valley and elsewhere do you see the pace either maintaining or even accelerating in the development..
The Double-Edged Sword of AI:-
Don’t see it hitting a wall or slowing down some people say it’s about to hit a wall and slow down think that’s nonsense um it’s developing very fast and will continue to develop very fast and perhaps the best way of understanding that is to look at what we could do with AI 10 years ago and look at the difference now 10 years ago if told you what we can do today with AI you wouldn’t have believed me You’ have said that’s just science fiction and think in another 10 years it’s going to be as big a change again and you’ve talked about that you talked about it in the press conference after the award but you’ve talked about it in interviews with my colleagues here at the promise of artificial intelligence and in speaking of the potential to be a new Industrial Revolution you’ve talked about health care and productivity new drugs tools to understand and combat climate change and things of that nature but you’ve also talked very clearly about your concerns for its consequences and indeed you mentioned that this morning as well wondering .
A Call for Research and Regulation:-
If we could talk about those for just a moment do you think I mean everywhere already you’re so well known globally for sounding the alarm about um AI essentially Taking Over Control does the Nobel Prize do you think does it give you potentially a moment a greater platform to to raise Consciousness about your concerns um I think it obviously does yes and so what would you like that message to be today that fandy soon probably within the next 20 years we’re going to develop things more intelligent than us and and we’ve never been there before we have no idea what it’s going to be like and we should be working hard now on how to make sure it doesn’t take control away from people because what we care about is people .
AI as a Research Tool:-
And so the best young researchers should be putting a lot of effort into that research problem now we don’t know if there’s a solution but if there is we need to find it fairly quickly and governments should be encouraging big companies to provide the resources necessary to do this Safety Research so right now um companies like open AI are clearly putting profits ahead of safety open is set up with a big concern about safety but more recently the safety researchers have all left and open AI is much more concerned with um making profits in the next few years than with the ultimate safety of this technology you just mentioned that there isn’t a solution .
But do you as you are you offering advice mean do you believe it will be possible to constrain and if so what is your best thinking in terms of how actually have no idea it’s not like climate change so with climate change we know what to do you just stop burning carbon and in the end everything will be okay it’s just we don’t have the political will to do that the big oil companies don’t want to stop burning carbon um with this there isn’t such a neat solution we don’t know what to do that’s why we should have the best young researchers trying to figure .
Too old to figure out new ideas about what to do but not too old to recommend that governments should make the big companies provide the resources and the young researchers should work very hard to figure out if there is a way that people can stay in control let me ask this was a question from a very bright member of my morning show team wondering if your past work if frame it this way past work on AI is helping you now in your current research on AI or for another way of saying is as AI is becoming more capable and the machines are learning to do more do they become then to you a helper for more research on how to make them even more intelligent yes mean that’s everybody more or less everybody believes that will happen but as a get smarter AI will be used to make things even smarter so maybe that’s where the solution lies within it would be very nice if AI could figure out how to keep AI safe um but that sounds a bit like letting the police monitor the police indeed .
Upcoming Engagement in Toronto:-
Thinking about your coming back to Toronto and there are a lot of people already very excited about the hint and lectures at the end of this month um the two-part lecture that you’re going to be hosting and it’s free incidentally I’m thinking that the uh attendance will will if not already sold out it’s going to be swelling to maximum um what do you think you’ll be telling people when you come back to Toronto in this series at the end of this month pretty much the same as have been telling you that AI is going to develop rapidly it’s going to be wonderful it’s going to lead to wonderful health care for example you’re going to be able to go to a family doctor who’s seen 100 million patients .
Closing Thoughts:-
Many of them just like you and remembers everything about their genomes and their relatives genomes it’s going to be fantastic um which is why progress is not going to be stopped don’t think we can hit a pause button on AI because there’s so many enormous benefits from it but we really need to worry about how to keep it under control sir it’s a pleasure to speak to you it’s an honor to speak to you particularly on this day and again wish you congratulations enjoy this moment .