Geoffrey Hinton, the renowned physicist and recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, has decided to pay it forward by using a portion of his prize money to establish a new award for young machine learning researchers. Along with his co-winner John Hopfield, Hinton received the prestigious prize in October for their groundbreaking contributions to the field of artificial intelligence.
The Nobel Prize came with a sizeable cash award of 11 million Swedish krona ($1 million), which Hinton and Hopfield will share. Hinton plans to allocate $500,000 towards creating the Sejnowski-Hinton Prize, an annual award of $10,000 that will be presented at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). This prize will recognize collaborations between researchers under the age of 40 who propose innovative theories on how the human brain functions.
Known as the “Godfather of A.I.,” Hinton is celebrated for his pioneering work on artificial neural networks, which have paved the way for today’s A.I. revolution. His Nobel Prize win specifically acknowledged his development of the Boltzmann machine, a neural network model based on statistical probabilities. The Sejnowski-Hinton Prize is named after Hinton and Terry Sejnowski, a prominent computational neuroscientist who collaborated with Hinton on the Boltzmann machine.
In addition to funding the new prize, Hinton has chosen to donate the remainder of his Nobel Prize winnings to charitable causes. Half of the prize money will support Water First, a Canadian nonprofit dedicated to addressing drinking water challenges in indigenous communities. He also plans to contribute to a charity that assists neurodiverse young adults in finding employment opportunities.
As a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto in Canada, Hinton has been a vocal advocate for increased safety regulations surrounding A.I. technologies. His decision to donate an early Boltzmann chip to the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm further underscores his commitment to advancing the field of artificial intelligence.
Hinton’s philanthropic gestures reflect his dedication to supporting the next generation of researchers and making a positive impact on society. By using his Nobel Prize winnings to create opportunities for young scientists and contribute to meaningful causes, Hinton continues to leave a lasting legacy in the world of artificial intelligence.
