Center for Advanced Intelligence Project

We would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to Dr. John Hopfield and Dr. Geoffrey Hinton upon winning the Nobel Prize in Physics. The following are messages from RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (AIP) Director and Deputy Director.

• Masashi Sugiyama, Director
  The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics to Professors John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton is a historic event that gives machine learning recognition as a field of scientific research.
  I hope that this will be an opportunity for machine learning research to develop even further and contribute even further to the happiness of humanity.
• Naonori Ueda, Deputy Director
  I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Professors John Hopfield and Jeffrey Hinton for winning the Nobel Prize in Physics. Professor Hopfield proposed a model known as the Hopfield network¹, and with it laid the theoretical foundations for neural networks by combining physics and neuroscience. Professor Hinton, for his part, made breakthroughs in the field of deep learning, and made significant contributions to the technical development of multilayer neural networks, including back-propagation.
  Having the opportunity to study in Professor Hinton’s laboratory at the University of Toronto and the University of London when I was young was an invaluable experience for me. I still have vivid memories of those days and in particular, I still fondly remember the days when we had fun chatting over lunch, especially at times when he would give us creative quizzes rather than discussing research. His sense of humor and flexible thinking stimulated my curiosity and became a driving force for my studies.
  Professor Hinton proposed a scheme for generative models, as typified by Boltzmann machines, and played an important role as a pioneer in this field. I myself was influenced by this and have continued to work on generative models to this day. When he received the NEC C&C Prize and Honda Prize a few years ago, Dr. Hinton was kind enough to ask me to give a guest speech, and he also visited our center to give a special lecture . The fact that he has been