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When the most significant advance since electrification needs to hop the fence to be recognized, perhaps it's time to add a new field. It can be done, the Econo
by worstspotgain 2y ago
When the most significant advance since electrification needs to hop the fence to be recognized, perhaps it's time to add a new field. It can be done, the Economics prize was added in 1968.
- ogogmad 2y agoNice idea. You could also have a Nobel prize in applied mathematics, perhaps? This would cover ML and physics. That said, your idea would make physicists less outraged.
- Etheryte 2y agoThis is unlikely to ever happen, because Nobel explicitly excluded mathematics from the list of prizes in his will. There are plenty of awards and prizes for every field imaginable, not everything has to be a Nobel prize to be worthy of recognition.
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoThen again, its just mathturbation, but standalone and it can pretend to have a theory of everything, so fits well into the field.
- amarcheschi 2y agoI like this idea, after all math is its own field of study. We might call it "field prize" or something like that (this comment is just a pun)
- wslh 2y agoSincerely, I don't like a shadow cast over the Turing and Gödel prizes. These awards have long honored groundbreaking achievements in computing and logic.
- krHagl 2y ago[flagged]
- jvanderbot 2y agoJust wait till you hear what they built with all the things we learned about atoms and energy in the 30s and 40s!
- lhnmx 2y agoThere was at least a credible story of fission/fusion for the benefit of humanity. Here, we know that AI is primarily used for target systems, surveillance, opinion manipulation, slop content, etc. If AGI ever succeeds it will be used for eliminating all knowledge jobs. Nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. Do you think that systems like Lavender won't be used in the future? Zero chance.
- jvanderbot 2y agoSo, the claim is that image recognition and ML (no, wait, broadened to AI?) is primarily used for targeting, surveillance, opinion manipulation, slop content, etc, and that AI has no credible benefit story, and is therefore nothing more than a weapon? I disagree fundamentally with that, and don't see how we could reach a mutual understanding working from that axiom.
- pantalaimon 2y agothe economics prize is not 'official', it was established by the Swedish National Bank in honor to Alfred Nobel.
- NlightNFotis 2y agoI see this written a lot, and I don’t get it. What matters for an award is that people recognise it as a prestigious accolade. The economics prize, while not “official”, is still recognised by everyone in economics as the highest honour in the field. Who cares if it’s “official” or not? Awards and prizes derive their value from their social recognition, which it has a solid amount of, at the very least.
- worstspotgain 2y agoOne could even argue it has all of the benefits and less of the dynamite scent.
- NlightNFotis 2y agoDepends on how much you consider that particular odour offensive :)
- Maken 2y agoThere is nothing wrong with their connection with dynamite. Nobel designed it to prevent deaths in construction and mining, because nitroglycerine was way too dangerous (and way too useful to be abandoned). It's bad reputation comes from it's use in warfare, which is undeserved because it was not very well suited to that use and was quickly replaced by other solid explosives.
- jfengel 2y agoDo they get to go to the ceremony with the other laureates, meet the king, etc? Of course that doesn't matter to anybody else, but I could see it mattering to the laureates themselves.
- 2y ago
- jedrek 2y agoThe economics prize is not an actual Nobel prize, but something "inspired" by the Nobel prize. It's little more than a tool to push neoliberal policies to the public, with 34 of the 56 winners tied to the Chicago School of Economics.
- 77pt77 2y agoThey just hijacked the prestige of the field. Like medical doctors did with the term doctor and psychiatrists by claiming they were doing medicine. The list is almost endeless.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hm236 2y agoIMO Turing Award is plenty prestigious - and has more legitimacy as its awarded by the relevant community (ACM) - rather than some small group (the Swedish Academy of Sciences) - tbh on that vein I'd say the right thing to do is to ditch the Nobel and let each community in the relevant field decide as a community the work to honor - prevent fiascos like this. (and, working in the field, I completely disagree with the qualification as "most ...." - it has well known deficiencies and has not yet stood the test of time)
- jebarker 2y ago> most significant advance since electrification I just don't see how this can be claimed at this point.
- shiandow 2y agoWell, society would collapse without computers so I think the description is apt. At best you could argue that they're the same phenomenon, but then you might equally well argue electrification is just the consequence of steam engines.
- jebarker 2y agoWait, was the parent comment talking about computers or ML? I interpreted it as the latter. The former I can get behind and I'd retract my statement!
- shiandow 2y agoHard to tell honestly. I just chose to fill in the blanks in a way that made for the strongest argument. I mean a Nobel prize category for advances in computing makes a lot of sense and I can easily name a whole list of people who could qualify. We'll need to be quick if we don't want to award some of them posthumously though.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- robotresearcher 2y agoThis prize isn't for inventing computers. It's for some fundamental ANN ideas.