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?

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

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:

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

Why do some children hate their parents?

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

There you go.^†

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.

I haven’t eaten junk food for weeks, I ate dirty all-day yesterday, but I can’t even workout, why am I so tired?

When he's standing, in front of you

[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.

Whatever.

If Russia needs the resources to fund the war in Ukraine, why doesn’t it throw open its doors to visa free western tourism? Enough people would be interested, & it would start to get some hard currency as €, CHF, £, SEK, $, JPY in the tills at shops.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

"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 cant I motivate myself to go to school (grade 10)?

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

Why do some people have loving parents and some do not?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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

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

Observations from Titans Minicamp on Wednesday - Tennessee Titans

(Mumbles of assent)

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Whatever.

Can you show pictures of your penis, big or small?

[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 rationalise their decision thusly:

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

Where are the big girls? This is the first time I've seen a bigger lady boy and that's awesome .. you should post more of them here, nothing wrong with a thick black lady

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

What are incels doing wrong?