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?

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

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

When he's standing, in front of you

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(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

[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.

Why do men choose to marry a plain Jane woman over a pretty woman?

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

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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

Why did Mark Lane harass Helen Markham during an illegally recorded telephone conversation to misidentify Lee Harvey Oswald who she witnessed as the shooter of Tippit?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

"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?"

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.

Why do atheists love to preach against Abrahamic religions and mock God? Even if they do not fear the eternal fire of hell, pious Muslims will certainly not leave them alone and will take brutal revenge until they surrender and repent of their sins.

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

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

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

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

(Mumbles of assent)

Why do unattractive men assume that a pretty woman like me want them?

[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."

Whatever.

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:

Why is my crush beautiful to me but not to others?

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

Whatever.

There you go.^†

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^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

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