Geoffrey Hinton, the British-Canadian computer scientist whose machine learning discoveries have proved so profound he鈥檚 known as the 鈥榞odfather of AI,鈥� has won the Nobel Prize in physics.

The honour was bestowed Tuesday on Hinton, 76, and Princeton University researcher John Hopfield, 91, by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It chose to award the pair because their use of physics had uncovered patterns in information that laid the foundation for machine learning and neural networks.

Machine learning is a form of computer science that relies on data and algorithms to help artificial intelligence mimic how humans learn, while neural networks are models that emulate the human brain by learning from data and detecting patterns. Both technologies underpin artificial intelligence, which provides the framework for devices and systems used across every industry around the world.

During a Stockholm news conference to announce the award, Hinton said he was 鈥渇labbergasted鈥� when the academy reached him by phone to announce his prize.

鈥淚 had no idea this would happen. I am very surprised,鈥� he said.

He later told an interviewer from the Nobel Prize that he had learned of his win around 2 a.m., while at a 鈥渃heap鈥� hotel in California, where he was due to receive an MRI on Tuesday.

鈥淚 guess I鈥檒l have to cancel that,鈥� he joked.

When the call came in from Stockholm, Hinton doubted it was even real.

鈥淢y very first thought was how could I be sure it wasn鈥檛 a spoof call?鈥� he said.

He was convinced of its authenticity when he realized it was coming from Sweden: 鈥淭he person had a strong Swedish accent and there were several of them.鈥�

His win will hand him half the share of the 11 million Swedish kronor (about C$1.45 million) from a bequest left by the award鈥檚 creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, but it will also further cement Hinton鈥檚 status as an AI pioneer.

While the technology has deeply fascinated the computer scientist for decades, he鈥檚 more recently developed concerns about AI because it has become even more advanced and accessible than he once imagined.

Since the November 2022 release of AI chatbot ChatGPT, everyone from students looking to cut corners on homework to tech giants wanting to boost profits have been racing to innovate with machine learning. Regulators have thus been left to figure out how to curtail some of the technology鈥檚 risks.

Despite AI鈥檚 recent explosion on the tech scene, Hinton has been researching the technology since the 1980s.

When co-laureate Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images in data, Hinton uncovered a way to find properties in data and identify specific elements in pictures, said the University of Toronto, where Hinton is a professor emeritus, Tuesday.

Hinton and his graduate students later built on the Boltzmann machine, which can classify images and generate new examples of patterns it was trained on, ushering in a modern take on machine leaning.

Their work has ultimately 鈥渂ecome part of our daily lives, for instance in facial recognition and language translation,鈥� Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said.

Much of Hinton鈥檚 work was completed at U of T鈥檚 computer science department, where he became a professor in 1987. He left about a decade later to found a computational neuroscience unit at University College London but returned in 2001.

In 2012, his team at the University of Toronto won the prestigious ImageNet computer vision competition by developing a technique that could identify images far better than competitors.

A year later, Google acquired DNNresearch, Hinton鈥檚 neural networks startup based on his U of T research.

In 2018, an even bigger honour came his way in the form of the A.M. Turing Award, known as the Nobel Prize of computing, which he won with fellow Canadian Yoshua Bengio and American Yan LeCun.

After learning of the Nobel announcement, Bengio said he emailed his congratulations to Hinton, who he said responded 鈥渨armly.鈥�

Bengio was a grad student when Hopfield and Hinton made several of their breakthroughs in the eighties.

鈥淚t changed really the meaning of AI for me and it made me really excited about working on neural networks because it not only brought concepts from physics into AI, which is really cool, but it also brought a broader, maybe more important idea,鈥� Bengio recalled.

鈥淚n the same way that in physics, we are able to explain what is going on with a few simple mathematical equations, we could do the same to understand intelligence 鈥� and that was not at all a common view.鈥�

The pair later met when Bengio became a professor. Hinton exceeded his expectations.

鈥淗e鈥檚 the kind of person who has a new idea a day,鈥� Bengio said. 鈥淰ery creative, very insightful, but also a real scholar (because) he鈥檚 interested in everything.鈥�

Lately, much of Hinton鈥檚 interest lies in worries about the technology that has been his life鈥檚 work. He quit his role as vice-president and engineering fellow at Google last spring so he could speak more freely about the risks of AI.

The move made Hinton a hot commodity on the tech conference circuit, where he has told audiences in Toronto that he fears AI could trigger lethal autonomous weapons, discrimination, unemployment, misinformation and even the demise of humanity.

Despite urging the world to act quickly to prevent the worst scenarios it could cause, he hasn鈥檛 eschewed AI completely.

鈥淲henever I want to know the answer to anything, I just go and ask GPT4,鈥� Hinton said at the Nobel announcement, referring to the chatbot鈥檚 latest model.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 totally trust it, because it can hallucinate, but on almost everything, it鈥檚 a not very good expert.鈥�

Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, was one of the students Hinton won the ImageNet prize with.

Other proteges including Aidan Gomez and Nick Frosst have gone on to found Cohere, one of the country鈥檚 buzziest AI startups. Gomez called Hinton 鈥渁 real hero for our field and for Canada鈥� and Frosst said 鈥渉is passion for discovery and invention will always be an inspiration but his kindness, playfulness and mentorship have benefitted me most.鈥�

Hinton鈥檚 influence on burgeoning tech talent has largely come from his close ties to U of T but also his work as a chief scientific adviser at the Vector Institute in Toronto and his investment in Radical Ventures, a Toronto-based venture capital fund focused on AI.

In congratulating Hinton, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland called him 鈥渢he teacher of generations of great Canadian intellectual leaders,鈥� while U of T president Meric Gertler said the school was 鈥渋mmensely proud of his historic accomplishment.鈥�

Tony Gaffney, Vector鈥檚 president and CEO, said Hinton鈥檚 鈥減ioneering research at the University of Toronto not only revolutionized the field of AI but has also been instrumental in establishing Canada as a global powerhouse in AI research and innovation.鈥�