UCL institute founder awarded Nobel Prize in Physics

Professor Hinton, who is currently based at the University of Toronto, was awarded the prize alongside Professor John J. Hopfield “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”. He is UCL's 31st Nobel laureate.

Between 1998 and 2001, Professor Hinton was the founding director of the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at UCL. The unit brings together the fields of theoretical neuroscience and machine learning and since its founding has uncovered new insights into the mathematical underpinnings of learning, perception and action in biological and artificial systems.

Professor Hinton, who was born in London in 1947, is sometimes known as the “Godfather of AI” for his work on artificial neural networks that paved the way for current AI systems such as ChatGPT. Neural networks are inspired by the structure of the brain, with the brain’s neurons represented by nodes that have different values.

He invented a method, the Boltzmann machine, that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures. The machine is trained by feeding it examples that are very likely to arise when the machine is run. The method can be used to classify images or create new examples of the type of pattern on which it was trained.

Professor Maneesh Sahani, who is Director of the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit and was a postdoc at the unit during Professor Hinton’s tenure, said: “Geoff has contributed to so many of the central breakthroughs that have shaped the machine-learning substrate of modern AI. 

“To take just one example: the Boltzmann machine work cited by the Nobel Prize committee led on to his development of the ‘Restricted Boltzmann machine’ while at the UCL Gatsby Unit, and this in turn helped to feed the late 2000s resurgence of ‘deep learning’ on which current AI systems depend. 

“Alongside their pioneering algorithmic work, both he and John Hopfield (a member of our founding advisory board) have long argued that the many mathematical insights gained from building intelligent machines will ultimately shed light on the workings of the brain and mind. 

“This was the vision that Geoff brought to us as founding director, and that has underpinned research in the unit in the years since.”

Professor Gail Taylor, Dean of Life Sciences, the faculty in which the Gatsby Unit sits, said: “It's wonderful to see Geoffrey Hinton honoured in this way. The research discoveries in the Gatsby Computational Neurosciences Unit at UCL, where he was founding director, continue to go from strength to strength.

“He was seminal in setting the vision of this important group as trailblazers in bringing together neurosciences and machine learning that underpins many new areas of understanding in AI.”

Links

• Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 announcement
• Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at UCL
• Professor Maneesh Sahani’s academic profile
• UCL Life Sciences

Image

• Professor Geoffrey E. Hinton  Credit: Noah Berger, source Associated Press / Alamy