Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to two scientists for work on AI

Hinton, known as the Godfather of artificial intelligence, is a citizen of Canada and Britain who works at the University of Toronto and Hopfield is an American working at Princeton

STOCKHOLM: Two pioneers of artificial intelligence (AI) - John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton - won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for helping create the building blocks of machine learning that is revolutionising the way we work and live but also creating new threats to humanity.

Hinton, known as the Godfather of artificial intelligence, is a citizen of Canada and Britain who works at the University of Toronto and Hopfield is an American working at Princeton.

"This year's two Nobel Laureates in physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today's powerful machine learning," the Nobel committee said in a press release.