Sometimes, on the morning when scientists receive the Nobel prize, they thank their colleagues. Occasionally they talk about the surprise of receiving a call from a Swedish number.
Often they are simply overwhelmed. Geoffrey Hinton, however, had other concerns.
Less than an hour after receiving the prize in physics, the British-Canadian AI pioneer used the occasion to warn that the technology he helped create could lead to the subjugation of humanity.
Hinton, who was born in London and now works at the University of Toronto, shared the prize with John Hopfield, from Princeton. Together, 40 years ago, they applied techniques from physics to show how machines could in a sense learn for themselves.
In doing so, they provided tools that helped in the development of