Only a handful scientists on earth ever earn the distinction of winning a Nobel Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime achievement forever etched into the annals of history. This made it that much more extraordinary that Geoffrey Hinton spoke for barely more than a minute before trashing the CEO of OpenAI during an ad hoc press briefing convened in honor of his award.

While Hinton’s work catapulted neural networks into the modern era, John J. Hopfield’s earlier breakthroughs laid a crucial foundation.

Two scientists who used physics to help develop methods used to build modern machine learning were honored with the 2024 Nobel Prize in the field.