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?

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.

"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?"

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Inside ‘Inside the NBA’ Transition to ESPN - Front Office Sports

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

(Mumbles of assent)

[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.

What discoveries in AI research have changed our understanding of intelligence evolution?

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Do people really never face any hidden costs or surprises with surgeries in countries with single-payer healthcare like the NHS?

When he's standing, in front of you

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

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

Microsoft's OpenAI partnership is fraying at the seams - Axios

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

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

Whatever.

Mission Control: Eye of the Storm - NASA (.gov)

There you go.^†

[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."

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

With a marketing degree, can I do a master’s in film production?

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

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:

Is the Donald Trump Bible any different from a regular Bible? Has Trump altered its contents?

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

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).

2-year-old boy is swept away on luggage conveyor belt at Newark Airport in latest terror at beleaguered travel hub - New York Post

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Whatever.

Witness testifies about Sean Combs’ ‘hotel nights’: ‘I was repulsed’ - NPR