The Nobel Prizes in chemistry and physics awarded this week to some artificial intelligence pioneers associated with Google have sparked debate over the company’s research dominance and how breakthroughs in computer science should be recognized.
Google has been at the forefront of AI research, but it has been forced to go on the defensive to deal with competitive pressure from Microsoft-backed OpenAI and increasing regulatory scrutiny from the US Justice Department.
On Wednesday, Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google’s AI unit DeepMind, and his colleague John Jumper were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with American biochemist David Baker for their work in decoding the structures of microscopic proteins.
Read | 3 scientists receive Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on protein structures
Meanwhile, former Google researcher Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize for Physics on Tuesday along with American scientist John Hopfield for earlier discoveries in machine learning that paved the way for the AI boom.
Professor Dame Wendy Hall, a computer scientist and adviser on AI to the United Nations, told Reuters that, while the recipients’ work was worthy of recognition, the lack of a Nobel Prize for mathematics or computer science had distorted the result.
“The Nobel Prize committee doesn’t want to give up this AI stuff, so it’s very constructive for them to push Geoffrey down the physics path,” he said. “I would argue that both are questionable, but still worthy of a Nobel Prize in terms of the science they’ve done. So how else would you reward them?”
Read | Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to two scientists for work on AI
Noah Giansiracusa, associate mathematics professor at Bentley University and author of “How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News”, also argued that Hinton’s victory was questionable.
“What they did was unprecedented, but was it physics? I don’t think so. Even if there was inspiration from physics, they were not developing any new theory in physics or solving a long-standing problem in physics. Are doing.”
The Nobel Prize categories for achievements in medicine or physiology, physics, chemistry, literature, and peace were established in the will of the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895. The prize for economics has subsequently been established with an endowment from Swedish. Central Bank in 1968.
Effect
Regulators in the US are currently circling Google for a potential break-up, which could force it to sell parts of its business, such as the Chrome browser and the Android operating system, which some argue That this allows it to maintain an illegal monopoly in online search.
The profits from their leading position have allowed Google and other Big Tech companies to overtake traditional academia in publishing groundbreaking AI research.
Hinton himself has expressed few regrets about his life’s work, leaving Google last year so he could speak openly about the dangers of AI, and warning that computers may become smarter than people sooner than previously thought. Can.
Read | What are proteins then? Nobel-winning chemistry explained
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, he said: “I wish I had some simple recipe that if you do this, everything will be OK, but especially with respect to the existential threat of these things I don’t have one.” Not there.” “Out of control and taking over.”
When he left Google in 2023 due to its AI concerns, Hinton said that the company itself acted very responsibly.
For some, this week’s Nobel Prize wins underscore how difficult it is becoming for traditional academia to compete. Giansiracusa told Reuters that more public investment in research is needed.
“Much of Big Tech is not focused on the next deep-learning breakthrough, but rather on making money by pushing chatbots or placing ads all over the Internet,” he said. “There are areas of innovation, but most of them are very unscientific.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
