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?

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

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

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

My stepdaughter’s mom tells her I’m not a real dance teacher, but my stepdaughter has seen me in action. Why does she still question my abilities?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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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[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."

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

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.

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

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

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

What made Sally Field a standout choice for "Smokey and the Bandit" despite her reputation as a serious actress after "Sybil"?

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

Whatever.

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

What are some important works of Marcel Proust (novelist)?

"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?"

[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.

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

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There you go.^†

They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.

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

Why are conservatives banning liberal books? Why are conservatives so offended by the teaching of racism and other topics?

When he's standing, in front of you

Whatever.

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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Why wait any longer for the one you love?

(Mumbles of assent)

You can have your cake and eat it too

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