The new star in this year’s Nobel prizes was AI. It is not surprising, but rather a reaffirmation of the rate and pace at which AI has gained predominance in our lives. Till a few years ago, research into AI was a niche area of scientific enquiry, with the Nobel prize being given for areas related to AI a new era has dawned.

The Physics Nobel was awarded to Dr John Hopfield and Dr Geoffrey Hinton and for their seminal work in artificial neural networks and machine learning. Dr Hopfield was responsible for creating artificial neural networks. Dr Hinton, often called the ‘Godfather of AI’, turbocharged the learning ability of these neural networks, so that they could learn in an unsupervised manner, spotting patterns in data without having to be taught.

The work of these two scientists had made machine learning become a tool for reducing mental labour across industries.  Their research is behind the neural networks that govern ChatGPT and other AI applications.

The Chemistry Nobel has gone to three scientists for their work of using AI to predict protein structures. Proteins are the building blocks of life. To understand biology, we need to understand the structure of proteins. Dr David Baker understood the structure by succeeding to design a new protein through computer programs. Rosetta Commons, his invention is now a software package used around the world.

The other two recipients, Sir Demis Hassabis and Dr John M Jumper went the other away, using AI to predict a protein’s structure from its amino-acid sequence. They are both part of DeepMind, Google’s AI Company. AlphaFold 1 and 2, both artificial neural networks now have a database of more than 200m protein structure predictions. Alphafold3 released in May now can predict the structure of many other biomolecules.

Choosing to honour those that helped create the basis for AI and also work performed through an AI model is a first for the Nobel Prize. AI is seeping into scientific research, and this is probably recognition that going forward humans and AI together would be doing stupendous and ground breaking work. AI stands recognized as being entrenched in scientific enquiry and research.

All things relating to AI always come with a caveat. Dr Hinton, the godfather of AI, said immediately after winning the prize, ‘“It will be comparable with the Industrial Revolution. But instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it’s going to exceed people in intellectual ability. We have no experience of what it’s like to have things smarter than us.”

From recognizing and awarding human intelligence, to acknowledging work done by humans with AI, the time may not be far when the Nobel committee may have to award a machine for some breakthrough research. That is only a small fear that AI brings with it!  

Published in Lokmat in November 2024