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Comment by nilkn | Hacker News Reader

This must be frustrating to see for all the actual physicists out there. What work in physics got ignored so that a prize for AI could be shoehorned in?

I do think work on neural networks does rise to the level of a Nobel Prize. So I don't have any problem with this work getting such high-level recognition. But I really struggle with the physics classification and the side effect of omitting an award to physicists this cycle.

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I was scratching my head but then it seems like the precedence for awarding Nobel prize for Physics for something that isn't "exclusively" physics has been set before.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2018/summary/

Peter Shor also got an award (albeit non Nobel) for something that overlaps Physics with Math + CS.

https://news.mit.edu/2022/shor-spielman-breakthrough-prize-0...

To me, I'd rather see a Nobel Prize in Math/CS/IS but if I had to choose where these type of work would be shoehorned into existing Nobel prize category physics would be it.

That could be true for half the prize, but for the other half, Hopfield is part of undergraduate and graduate physics canon.

The distinctions between experimental-theoretical scientific disciplines are fairly arbitrary, e.g. where does one draw the line between physics and chemistry and biology? Mathematics is something of an exception but there's no Nobel for that, nor for astronomy, planetary science, etc.

The Nobels are grossly overrated and the idea that one can follow the most important scientific developments of the past century by just listing off the Nobel Prizes since 1905 is one best abandoned.

Well, was there anything in physics more important than AI? No? See...

It just makes one wonder, what is the point of categories of Nobel prizes? Should they instead hand out half a dozen or so prizes each year for whatever is most important to them?

The categories correspond to who's filling out the nomination paperwork, and voting. You might think of it as a "Nobel from physics," which only usually is a Nobel in physics.

No deeper point other than the person who funded it thought these fields should be awarded and encouraged (econ is the exception).

Many of the actual physicists out there are ML researchers.

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