Prize sensitive

Is it time for a change in how the Nobels are awarded? Could new areas of focus help transform a troubled world? What would it take to do things a little differently, and arguably (think of the Peace Prize) do them better?

- Kashyap Kompella

This year, AI made its way into the Nobels.

The prize in physics was awarded to computer scientists John Hopfield, 91, and Geoffrey Hinton, 76, for their early role in the advancement of artificial intelligence. The chemistry Nobel went to computational biologist David Baker and AI experts Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google DeepMind, for their work on predicting protein structure using AI.

The awards, set to be handed over on December 10, have upset purists more dramatically than any since rapper Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer for Music (in 2018). Back then, classical musicians said they were prompted to look around and ask: Really, was there no one here you thought worthy?

This is perhaps understandable, given how incredibly precious these prizes are. There are, after all, 10 times more billionaires alive than there are living Nobel laureates (though that is admittedly also a reflection of our fraying economic systems).

But is it perhaps time for a significant shift?

Alfred Nobel instituted the awards because he wanted to be remembered as more than the "merchant of death" who invented dynamite. He wanted to leave behind an endowment that would push humanity to be better, do better, and celebrate the greatest minds of each generation.

He laid out five categories: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace (the Economics Prize is handed out by a separate but affiliated panel).

Decades since they were first handed out in 1901, change has already crept in.