How did a computer scientist such as Geoffrey Hinton manage to win a Nobel Prize in physics when computer science already has its own Nobel Prize equivalent in the Turing Awards?

"Naah, Linnainmaa is a Finn. Can't give it to a bloody Finnish mathematician. Let's go for drinks. Brännvin anyone?"

A fly on the wall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"

Observations from Day 5 of OTAs - Cleveland Browns

(Mumbles of assent)

In awarding prizes, the Nobel Committees often seem only marginally more competent than MTG is at explaining meteorology. And if they can give a literature prize for lyrics like:

"Good point, I'm sure we can swing it. And let's tack on Hopfield while we're about it."

What was your embarrassing moment in front of your father-in-law as an Indian daughter-in-law?

[Younger voice] "But wait a minute, Ising-Lenz goes back to the 1920's. And didn't Hinton plagiarise rather a lot? He also didn't invent modern backprop, did he, that's Linnainmaa? And Amari preceded Hopfield, too. That's not a good look."

"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"

There you go.^†

Trump's huge bill includes immediate gift for layoff-ridden Bay Area tech - SFGATE

In December 1973, when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, comedian Tom Lehrer dropped his mic and stamped on it—satire had just died.

Whatever.

Whatever.

Why is money considered to be the root of all evil?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"

^* Fibiger got the 1926 Medicine prize for the discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma (Don’t ask).

Can anyone or anything overthrow your belief in the Jewish God?

[The basic structure of artificial neural networks] has close similarities with spin models in statistical physics applied to magnetism or alloy theory. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes research exploiting this connection to make breakthrough methodological advances in the field of ANN.

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"

Dollar Tree raises red flag about unexpected customer behavior - TheStreet

You can have your cake and eat it too

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Fortunately, we are privy to the discussion that led up to this:

What are scads fish? What types are there?

When he's standing, in front of you

"Hey guys, AI is pretty big so let's centre our prizes on it this year. We can get some attention, and it's all about advertising, at the end of the day, isn't it?"

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

40 Father’s Day Gifts He’ll Wanna Brag About - BuzzFeed

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

… then anything is possible. There’s no rule that a Nobel Prize has to make sense.^*

They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.

My boyfriend won’t tell me his past and it hurts me so I broke up with him what do I do?