Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize winner for AI research, says he's 'proud that his students fired CEO Sam Altman'

By TechCrunch

On October 8, 2024, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics to Professor John Hopfield of Princeton University in the United States and Professor Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto in Canada for 'fundamental inventions that enable machine learning through artificial neural networks.' In his acceptance speech on the same day, Hinton said, 'I'm proud that one of my students fired Sam Altman.'

After winning Nobel for foundational AI work, Geoffrey Hinton says he's proud Ilya Sutskever 'fired Sam Altman' | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/09/after-winning-nobel-for-foundational-ai-work-geoffrey-hinton-says-hes-proud-ilya-sutskever-fired-sam-altman/

Hinton developed an algorithm called 'backpropagation' that enables neural networks to learn, based on the 'pattern matching' neural network technology developed by Hopfield, called the ' Hopfield network , ' which can store and reconstruct data.

The two men developed these technologies using approaches such as physics and statistical methods, and in recognition of their achievements, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded them the Nobel Prize in Physics. The details of how they received the award and their reactions are summarized in the following article.

Two researchers who proposed the foundations of AI and machine learning using artificial neural networks win Nobel Prize in Physics - GIGAZINE

In his acceptance speech afterwards, Hinton said, 'I've been especially fortunate to have had many students who are much smarter than me. They've achieved many great things, and I'm most proud of the fact that one of my students fired Sam Altman.' Below is the actual speech in which Hinton made the remarks, and you can hear the above remarks from around 3 minutes and 17 seconds.

University of Toronto Press Conference - Professor Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 - YouTube


OpenAI suddenly announced CEO Altman's resignation and departure from the company on November 17, 2023. This sudden dismissal is believed to have been caused by a conflict between CEO Altman and OpenAI's board of directors, and it has been reported that one of the directors , Ilya Satskivar, led the dismissal of CEO Altman.

Is OpenAI's former CEO Sam Altman's resignation due to a dispute with chief scientist Ilya Satskever over 'AI safety'?

In 2012, Hinton and Satskivar, then students at the University of Toronto, published a paper on AlexNet, a neural network architecture, laying the foundations for neural network technology.

Satskever has since become co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI, where he has said, 'I was wrong' due to the risks of AI technology, and has shifted to a policy of restricting the disclosure of information on AI research that had been open until then. The same is true for Hinton, who researched AI systems at Google in 2013, but left Google in April 2023 in order to speak freely about the dangers of AI.

'Godfather of AI' regrets AI research and leaves Google - GIGAZINE

TechCrunch reported that Hinton 'seems to see his protégé Satskever's dismissal of CEO Altman, who was pushing AI development forward, as a success in terms of AI safety.'