Is artificial intelligence physics or chemistry? Nobel Prize wins debate over the role of technology in science

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Artificial intelligence entered the summit of scientific achievements this week, after receiving the best award Nobel Prizes in Physics and fromchemical.

The awards highlight the impact of technology on all aspects of our lives, but have also sparked debate and even anger on social media from researchers about how AI relates to these scientific disciplines.

“I'm speechless. I love machine learning and artificial neural networks as much as anyone, but it's hard to realize that this is a physical discovery.” books Jonathan Pritchard, an astrophysicist at Imperial College London, On X.

He added: “I think the Nobel Prize was hurt by the hype around artificial intelligence.”

The Nobel Prize is usually awarded to research conducted decades ago, after its impact can be assessed as being of “greatest benefit to humanity.”

Winners

He received one of the so-called “godfathers of artificial intelligence”, Geoffrey Hinton, and professor and physicist John Hopfield Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday For his work, beginning in the 1980s, he relied on physics concepts to invent artificial neural networks that led to and influenced the development of artificial intelligence.

A day later, artificial intelligence was once again in the Nobel Prize news, after Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, John Jumper, director of DeepMind, and David Becker, a professor at the University of Washington, won. Chemistry Prize for his work on proteins.

Baker has been praised for his work on an AI-based protein prediction tool called RoseTTAFold and for his work developing new proteins. Hassabis and Jumper, in turn, developed an artificial intelligence system that solves the 50-year-old problem of protein structure prediction.

“It is too early to talk about artificial intelligence participating in all awards,” Hassabis said in a press conference.

“Human ingenuity comes first — asking the question and developing the hypothesis — and AI systems can't do any of that,” Hassabis said. “AI systems can't do any of that. Right now, they're just analyzing data.” Adding that “it is interesting that the committee decided to make a statement” by awarding two AI-related awards.

Is artificial intelligence related to physics and chemistry?

“My first reaction was that we don't take AI seriously enough,” said David Vivancos, CEO of deep learning and AI organization MindBigData.com.

“I'm a big fan of [Hinton e Hopfield] And they made a wonderful discovery. But the important point is that it is not within the realm of physics, unless we believe that physics is everything.”

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, physics is described as “a branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of inanimate matter and energy,” that is, anything that exists physically.

Vivancos explained his view that physics is “related to something physical, it's a real thing,” while regarding AI behavior “it's more related to something that happens in the computer's mind than it is to a physical object.”

But could artificial intelligence be related to chemistry? In the case of the Nobel Prizes, this is certainly possible, because it is computational chemistry, which uses computer simulations to help solve complex chemical problems.

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“Using AI to predict the structure of proteins is a huge advance with countless uses in biology, medicine and beyond,” said Andy Cooper, Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Materials Innovation Factory and Leverhulme Center for the Design of Functional Materials at the University of Liverpool. , in a statement.

“AI will also have an impact on other areas of chemistry, but the field of proteins has some special characteristics.

“First, there is a large amount of well-organized training data. Second, proteins are structurally complex but very simple in structure – they are built from a very small set of building blocks,” he added.

There are different types of AI, such as the generative type, but in general, AI is defined as a technology that allows computers and machines to mimic human learning, understanding and problem solving.

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Artificial Intelligence “a triumph of interdisciplinarity”

Vivancos said that if AI were to be placed within the framework of traditional science, it might be closer to mathematics.

But he also said it could be biology or neuroscience, because of algorithms that could help researchers sift through vast libraries of genetic data.

AI can be classified into most categories and will have an impact on all of our lives, for example in real-time road traffic management, navigation applications such as Google Maps and everyday objects such as robotic vacuum cleaners.

said Virginia Dignum, a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Umeå University in Sweden, who also leads the Ethics Artificial Social Intelligence research group at the university.

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“True scientific discoveries are no longer limited to one discipline, but require a broad perspective and a combination of different knowledge,” Virginia Dignum told EuronewsNext.

“Artificial intelligence here is an accelerator and support for the exploration of large research spaces, a tool that can analyze wide sets of data, predict results and even propose new hypotheses, which increases the capabilities of researchers in fields such as biology, physics, chemistry and medicine,” he added.

But Dignum said the awards are not about AI's place in the Nobel Prizes, but rather about open-mindedness and “the respectful attitude of scientists” and how much can be learned.

“Perhaps it is time to update the Nobel Prizes to recognize that discoveries of real importance lie beyond the traditional division into specializations,” Dignum said.

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