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So can we expect that Sam Altman will be honored with Nobel prize 2025? After all physics prize went to AI researchers this year, and chemistry prize went to an

So can we expect that Sam Altman will be honored with Nobel prize 2025? After all physics prize went to AI researchers this year, and chemistry prize went to an organizational head.

patall 2y ago
He may still win literature this year.
- fuzzfactor 2y ago
  I can only predict a more prestigious prize on the horizon in the future. Isn't sama on track to end up with more financial resources than Nobel had at his disposal? Plus I think he's got enough of a philanthropic streak which can prove to be not so shabby. There could very well be a foundation someday awarding the Altman Prize well into the 22nd century. Whether or not his most dynamic legacy would be something as simultaneously useful/dangerous as dynamite.
  - patall 2y ago
    Hassabis should also be a billionaire by now.
  - jsnell 2y ago
    The Nobel prize's prestige comes from its history, not from the size of the monetary award. For an example, the Millennium Technology Prize is awarded every two years and the prize money is slightly higher than the Nobel prize (1M EUR vs 0.94M EUR). The achievements it's been awarded for tend to be much more practical, immediate and understandable than the Nobel prize achievements. The next one should be awarded in a couple of weeks. And when that happens, it'll get 1/10th the publicity a Nobel prize gets, because the Nobel prize is older than any living human and has been accumulating prestige all that time, while the Millennium prize is only 20 years old.
- pyb 2y ago
  He's up for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. https://x.com/S_OhEigeartaigh/status/1843979139948355893 https://x.com/S_OhEigeartaigh/status/1843979139948355893
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
You're really conflating things. Altman is no Hassabis. Just because there is a ton of hype from OpenAI doesn't detract from what DeepMind has done. AlphaGo anybody? Are we really already forgetting what a monumental problem protein folding was, decades of research, and AlphaFold came in and revolutionized it overnight. We are pretty jaded these days when miracles are happening all the time and people are like "yeah, but he's just a manager 'now', what have they done for me in the last few days".
- authorfly 2y ago
  I am missing context here and would love to know more. Say I know about ATP Synthase and how the proteins/molecules involved there interact to make a sort of motor. How does AlphaFold help us understand that or more complicated systems? Are proteins quite often dispersed and unique, finding each other to interact with? Or like ATP Synthase are they more of a specific blueprint which tends to arrange in the same way but in different forms? In other words: Situation 1) Are there many ATP synthase type situations we find too complex to understand - regular patterns and regular co-occurences of proteins but we don't understand them? Situation 2) Or is most of the use of Protein situational and one-off? We see proteins only once or twice, very complicated ones, yet they do useful things? I struggle to situate the problem of Unknown proteins without knowing which of the above two is true (and why?)
- chermi 2y ago
  Nitpick - this is protein structure prediction, not protein folding
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    Isn't the folding how the structure is created?

So can we expect that Sam Altman will be honored with Nobel prize 2025? After all physics prize went to AI researchers this year, and chemistry prize went to an organizational head.

patall 2y ago

He may still win literature this year.

fuzzfactor 2y ago
I can only predict a more prestigious prize on the horizon in the future. Isn't sama on track to end up with more financial resources than Nobel had at his disposal? Plus I think he's got enough of a philanthropic streak which can prove to be not so shabby. There could very well be a foundation someday awarding the Altman Prize well into the 22nd century. Whether or not his most dynamic legacy would be something as simultaneously useful/dangerous as dynamite.
- patall 2y ago
  Hassabis should also be a billionaire by now.
- jsnell 2y ago
  The Nobel prize's prestige comes from its history, not from the size of the monetary award. For an example, the Millennium Technology Prize is awarded every two years and the prize money is slightly higher than the Nobel prize (1M EUR vs 0.94M EUR). The achievements it's been awarded for tend to be much more practical, immediate and understandable than the Nobel prize achievements. The next one should be awarded in a couple of weeks. And when that happens, it'll get 1/10th the publicity a Nobel prize gets, because the Nobel prize is older than any living human and has been accumulating prestige all that time, while the Millennium prize is only 20 years old.
pyb 2y ago
He's up for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. https://x.com/S_OhEigeartaigh/status/1843979139948355893 https://x.com/S_OhEigeartaigh/status/1843979139948355893

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

You're really conflating things. Altman is no Hassabis. Just because there is a ton of hype from OpenAI doesn't detract from what DeepMind has done. AlphaGo anybody? Are we really already forgetting what a monumental problem protein folding was, decades of research, and AlphaFold came in and revolutionized it overnight. We are pretty jaded these days when miracles are happening all the time and people are like "yeah, but he's just a manager 'now', what have they done for me in the last few days".

authorfly 2y ago
I am missing context here and would love to know more. Say I know about ATP Synthase and how the proteins/molecules involved there interact to make a sort of motor. How does AlphaFold help us understand that or more complicated systems? Are proteins quite often dispersed and unique, finding each other to interact with? Or like ATP Synthase are they more of a specific blueprint which tends to arrange in the same way but in different forms? In other words: Situation 1) Are there many ATP synthase type situations we find too complex to understand - regular patterns and regular co-occurences of proteins but we don't understand them? Situation 2) Or is most of the use of Protein situational and one-off? We see proteins only once or twice, very complicated ones, yet they do useful things? I struggle to situate the problem of Unknown proteins without knowing which of the above two is true (and why?)
chermi 2y ago
Nitpick - this is protein structure prediction, not protein folding
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  Isn't the folding how the structure is created?