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?

When he's standing, in front of you

Whatever.

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

In the TV show Supernatural, why is God portrayed as cruel?

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

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

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

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

[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.

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

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(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

(Mumbles of assent)

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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Whatever.

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

Is TikTok a creation of the porn industry? To make porn more normalized and accepted? So the porn industry doesn’t lose customers?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

"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?"

[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."

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

There you go.^†

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

Would you let your partner cheat on you every now and again?

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.

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

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

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:

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

What are some good fantasy books that contain aspects of magic in them?